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Songs From the Black Mesa 



ALOIS B. RENEHAN. 



New Mexican Printing Company, 
Santa Fe, N. M. 



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Library of Congpess! 

Iwu CoHES Received I 

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SECOND COPY 
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Copyright 19o|, 

By Alois B. Renehan, 

Santa Fe, N. M. 



To My Father, 

A poet unknown to fame because he 
sang for self alone, this volume is 
affectionately inscribed. 



FOREWORD. 

Some run into print for profit, some out of pride or 
vanity. I publish because the mood is on me, and because, 
Hke other fond parents, I dehght in the contemplation of my 
offspring in spite of their imperfections. 

"Retrospection" is to be commended in hardly any re- 
spect, if in any at all, but I let it stand as a monument to the 
imagination which conceived and the impulse wihch expressed 
its sentiments. That imagination and that impulse have been 
dead f(»r many years, and in their room, 1 trust, a charity has 
been installed, which will admit a possible misinterpretation 
of the characters portrayed in darker hues. 

It is not unusual to suggest immaturity of age in apology 
for an author's shortcomings, and though nearly all of these 
lines were written at college, at a time when mother's apron 
strings were still intact, I do not offer that fact in extenua- 
tion. The riper discretion which procures the publication 
must be the burden-bearer of its sins without regard to the 
deficiencies of the youth which provided the materials. 

However, I have friends who are generous or careless 
enough to discover some virtue in my work, and I would 
not refuse them an opportunity to possess in compact form 
that with which to occupy a vagrant half hour. Those of a 
literary turn will see the flaws with kindly eye; those whose 
aptitudes are not encompassed by letters will entertain an 
idle season; some may attribute to the writings merits which 
they do not own. In any case, each will find gratification 
according to his notion in Songs From the Black Mesa. 

Alois B. Renehan, 

Santa Fe, N. M., November 1, 1900. 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

Carolyn Claraci 11 

Angling 15 

Clamavi adTe, Domine! 17 

La Zeporita 21 

Cruising on the Cruiser, Life 23 

Pauline 25 

Llsbeth 26 

The Lighthouse Keeper 27 

The Bridal of the Dead 28 

Introspection 45 

Four-Year-Old 4:7 

I Often Try to Sing the Days 49 

On the Farm 50 

What is This Love? 52 

Disenchantment 54 

Good-Bye, My Books 55 

A Mood of Mine 57 

Oh, That I Could Forget! 58 

Sorrow 59 

Threnody 60 

Lullaby 63 

A Drinking Song 65 

To My Watch 66 

Symptoms 67 

To Frances Folsom Cleveland 68 

Carmelita 71 

Inconstancy's Confession 72 

Hope 73 

On Returning to St. Charles .74 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Mother Mary T6 

Cupid's Shot 77 

Retrospective 78 

Ravings 102 

May, 1884 106 

Lina 107 

The Wagon Ride From College to the Cars ... 108 

Uncertainty 110 

Two Flowers 112 

Lines on the Death of May Kavanaugh 120 

Caesar Jackson's Wedding 121 

An Alexandrian Love Affair 123 

Coyote's Argument 125 

To the Prairie Dog 128 

The Drill of the Cowboy Rough Rider 130 

What Boots It to Weep? 132 

Let Me Dream 137 

Aftermath 138 

To Bessie 140 

St. Matthew's Institute— Second Anniversary • - • .141 

When "Teddy" Set Up the Wine 142 

Cuba Libre 144 

The Major 146 

Jurors Insurgent 148 

Lamentation 152 

To Chas. W. Dudrow • • 153 

Epigrams 154 

TRANSLATIONS. 

From the Spanish. 

Love's Frailty 159 

The First Blown Flower 160 

Nightingale 161 



CONTENTS. 9 

PAGE 

A Poet's Epitaph 162 

Mosquito 163 

At the Tomb of the Duque de Lerma, Roman Cardinal 164 

Frederick, Brother of the Marquis Espinola . 165 

La Virtud Perdida 166 

From the French. 

The Emigrant Mountaineer 167 

Unholy Love 169 

What is Life 171 

All Souls' Day 172 

The Convalescent 175 

The Angel and the Child 177 

The Leaf 178 

Sonnet 179 

Epigram 180 

From the Latin. 

The Deluge 181 

Dencalion's Address to Pyrra 182 



SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

CAROLYN CLARACI. 

Ah, maid, the fear that filled thy mind of me. 

Where is it now'? 
Where is the doubt that ravished me from thee, 
And sent me far beyond the rumbling sea 

To savage climes. 
Where hoping knew no smoothly fluent rhymes. 

But when the thought was thou. 

And here I am again and tender look for thee. 

But thou hast gone. 
The same birds sing, the same brook purlingly 
Whimpers along its sedgy marge, and seel 

I stroke its crest, 
Fleecily curling, and I seek for rest. 

While it goes restless on. 

I see thy fond face pictured in the stream, 

Thy laughter hear; 
Thy dazzling glance leaps lightly from the beam 
That flutters on the water, and I dream 

Of other days, 
And thou art sitting by my side always. 

As in that distant year. 

And when thou kissed me that last night, ah, yes,. 

And said "Good-bye!" 
I went away so sad, I could not guess 
That thou didst love me then, indeed, no les& 

Than I did thee. 



12 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

And on my lips thy kiss hung tremblingly, 
Thou sister, brother I. 

But thou art dead, alas I and flown, alas! 

So far away. 
And there the roysterers shout at merry mass, 
The country play beside the meadow pass 

Flings gladsomely, 
And lad and maiden all forget my dree, 

That wept that other day. 

Oh, if we only knew the speechless truth, 

That coyly peeps 
From out the eye of timid, bashful youth, 
Fain to be seen, and, on the cheek vermouth, 

Burns softly red, 
A lamplight lit that one might read at dead 

Of night, the word that leaps 

Along the quivering pulses evermore. 

And satin flesh. 
But each knew not the other well before 
The parting day, nor knew the runeless lore 

That we have learned 
At last in sorrowing, while wasting burned 

The taper trimmed afresh. 

And now through life I'll wander onward sick, 

And think of thee. 
And languish for the day when I can prick 
The sluggish steed of time, until it stick 

At length fore'er 
Upon the threshold of the otherwhere. 

And wilt thou come to me. 



CAROLYN CLARACI. 13 

And meet me when I venture boldly in 

Where thou art now? 
For I'll shall be right blessed thus to win 
Once more thy raptured smile, and love the sin 

Of heeding' not 
That smote our living wordless troth begot, 

But never born a vow. 

But I do bless the waiting and the woe 

That came of it, 
To know the gathered bliss that I shall know 
When then together, as of old, we go 

By other ways, 
'Neath other shadowy woods, in other days, 

And by some new stream sit. 

Good-bye, dear girl: till then, forlorn, good -bye 1 

The moon goes down 
Below the vineyard hill; the gray owl's cry 
Is thrumming in the glen; the glade that by 

The whistling run 
Is shrill with crickets' song, grows dusk and dun, 

And like a human frown. 

So I must go away to-night, away 

Beyond the scene, 
And let the night-bird tell the sprite and fay 
Of thee and me alone, for all I say 

Is sad tonight. 
Though memory sings the dolesome and the bright, 

And that which thou hast been. 

Fond brook, flow on and play thy wonted tune 

Before I go: 
Shimmer along the landscape, silver moon, 



14 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

And whiten up the shallow, and the dune 

Above the glade; 
Shrill crickets, cheep again, before I fade 

Away tonig-ht and go. 

Good-night, old homestead on the hill, good-night! 

And down the path. 
That crawls among the apple trees, a blight, 
And lost, I wind once more, and watch the flight 

Of boding rooks; 
Once more apast the rustic bench, and nooks 

Of love I go, — Good-night! 

The old gate creaks behind me. misering; 

The dusty height 
I labor up, and pause awhile; shrill sing 
The crickets still, and stupid birds take wing. 

Upon the hill. 
Par off from home, I stand and gaze, until 

My old dog bays "good-night!" 



ANGLING. 



ANGLING. 

Out on the river, jilting" 

Glides my fickle boat, 

The rocky minstrels lilting 

A lullaby soft and low. 

Do I think of the fishes kilting 

Themselves with the opaline stream? 

Do I think of the pools I ravish, 

Of the mate from her mate I snare, 

Of the moaning I bring to the waters, 

And the weapons of death I bear"? 



In drowsy solitude, it and I, — 
Where the eddies come bewimpled 
In hoods of lacy foam, 
I_lurk like a thief in the thicket, 
That a frail finny fellow may die. 
And think not yet of the sorrow, 
Or waft of the piscerine sigh. 

Over beyond on the hilltop, 

Clad green in the murmurous leaves, 

I hear the song of the redbreast. 

That wooes as I would woo, 

And I say to myself: "I loiter 

Alone in this lonely place 

To weave in its fancy my fancy, 

And picture me only a face:" 

Till I dream on this lovelorn rock. 

Out here where the eddies play. 

Catching vaguely the moan of their music. 

Crooning tender at set of the day. 



16 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Ah, that face will go with me forever, 
In sleeping- or waking- I ween, 
And sad must I wander forever, 
And mind me the face I have seen. 
Its beauty is fretful and lonely; 
It smiles but the smiles I distrust: 
But its sadness that won my love, only 
Corroded mv soul like a rust. 



CLAM A VI AD TE, DOMTN?:] 



CLAMAVI AD TE, DOMINE. 



Quenched is the light, the warming- ray 
That in its glow had wrapped me here, 
And all the hopes effulgence brings. 
And all the songs contentment sings, 
Have followed it away, away. 
And left me lonely, broken, drear. 

Alice, my girl, why have you gone 
Within the all-encircling gloom? 
And could you not abide with me 
A moment more? Could it not be'? 
Then pray me to my dying on, 
And meet me at the closing tomb. 



Slow moves the heart: its fire is low; 
It wavers like my hopes and fears, 
For now no more your face revives 
It failing fast, and sorrow-gyves. 
Pain-wrought, oppress: this bitter woe 
Indites the tracery of years. 

Ah, yes, I know there's light above I 
Are you not there, dear, vanished girl? 
And hence are shadows on my path. 
Where'er I go the darkness hath 
On me its cloak, as if for love 
Its folds encircle, furl on furl. 

Fain would I bear the winding-sheet. 
A passport only up to thee. 



18 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

The tinsel of the thoughtless proud, 
Their gorgeous fabrics, gem-endowed, 
Not to thy skyey bourne admit, 
Not from my bondage set me free. 

'Tis not in shams the riven soul 
Can find the solace or the peace. 
And all the trinkets mines bestow 
Can not illume the gloom of woe, 
Can not expunge the blurs of dole. 
Nor shackled happiness release. 

The fulsome tribe with worship base, 
The tender strains that love can sing, 
The flash of wit, nor humor's brew, 
Nor banquet spread, nor winecup's hue. 
Nor piquant pen, nor beauty's face, 
Can keep regret from whimpering. 

Would that from out this pictured scene 
My soul unvestured I could pluck! 
Smug pomp and pageant strut in silk, 
For which has toiled the sweaty ilk, 
But they forget whereon they lean 
May lapse ere twelve o'clock has struck. 

Was I not joyful yesternoon. 
The past ignored, the future scorned? 
Did silks not rustle, diamonds spit 
Their coruscations where I sit 
Beside my dead? And yet so soon 
To mourn I know, untaught, unwarned. 

I beg you give me for a boon, 
That life shall ravel out ere lono-! 



CLAMAVI AD TE, DOMINE. 19 

There's that within that would g-o higher. 
Here once a silver-spoken lyre 
Was music, now a slavering- clroon, 
The fable of a vital song-. 

What is this scurrying multitude? 

A throng- of empty-pated fools, 

That sleep and wake, that eat and rush 

In headlong folly, steeped — but hush I 

Before the night a lesson rude 

May rule the brain that nothing rules. 

I now am wise indeed; I know 
To look beyond the screed today: 
I know the book has many leaves, 
And everyone somewhat bereaves. 
Beware tomorrow; it may go 
Aright; go otherwise it may. 

Upon this buoyant, frivolous sphere, 
'Tis all a blatant, dressed-up fraud: 
Day's dalliance is a frowzy charm: 
Peace startled by a harsh alarm: 
Day done to death in festive cheer 
Is still, and night is overawed. 

And death is but an open door 

Unto a passageway that leads 

To better things than gaudy gowns, 

And smiles that cover sneers and frowns, 

Provided life prepares, before 

The harvest-home, productive seeds. 



Remove this sorrow's nasty cup: 
Present the dream v drug of death. 



20 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Taught by the secret pang that lives 
And thrives at heart, I seek what gives 
A chariot home, to take me up 
To home when I have yielded breath. 



LA ZEPORITA. 21 



LA ZEPORITA. 

Her eyes are brown as berries. 
Her hair as black as night , 

Her cheeks like blushful roses, 
Her step like dawn of light. 

And in her voice is music, 
Like flute-notes o'er the wave. 

That bears a sweeter message 
Than peevish love would crave. 

Oh, yield me now the glory 
That gilds her where she goes! 

Oh, yield me now the lyric 

That rustles from her clothes! 

No daughter there is fairer 

Beneath the Mexic sun, 
For in her face and fashion 

Is beauty's gamut run. 

I saw her on the plaza, 
The gazing crowd around, 

Where every glance was homage. 
And tribute every sound. 

I stood beside the fountain, 
That flung its meed of praise. 

And watched her brown eyes sparkle 
With thefts of vernal rays. 



22 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

The flower on the trellis, 

It blows, and glows and dies; 

The flower on the verdant sod, 
It fades while Zephyr sig-hs. 

The boscage on the mountain, 
The wilding on the plain. 

The frost it smites them saffron 
Whose forbears it has slain. 

But she is like the sculpture 
Of ancient Rome and Greece, 

By fame or fortune guarded 
From mortal themes' surcease. 

And on the mind she enters 
Through portal of the eye, 

A perfect face she etches , 
That can not dim nor die. 



CRUISING ON THE CRUISER, LIFE. 23 



CRUISING ON THE CRUISER, LIFE. 

It clears from a harbor of gloom, 
For the desolate port of the tomb; 
The crib is a bunkplace today, 
Tomorrow a coffin. 

The waves gather high all around, 
Oi" calms, or lugubrious fogbanks abound; 
Now seagulls delightedly play 
In rigging and offing. 

There's gladness on board many times, 
Or the drone of funereal, chanted rhymes, 
As it cleaves through the weather its way, 
Like a rapier of light. 

Through bayous where birds sing we sail. 
Near shores where the woods grumble, groan and wail: 
One time in the vastness we lay 
In the murk of the night. 

See, the heavens are frantic with flame, 
Where the harmonized ocean pipes organed acclaim — 
The Triune tumultuous obey ! 
And I love the trip out. 

At the rage of a monster set free, 
At the bayonets that stab through the swooning sea, 
The beautiful falters away. 

Then I hate, for I doubt. 



24 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

But when will the pilot arrive, 
And whitherward, on like a cloud, do we strive? 
This future, what is it, I pray, 
Or past with its sorrow? 

And when the crew land, who can tell. 
If ill 'twill be with them or worsened or well, 
On shore leave forever that day? 
Let's wait till tomorrow. 



PAULINE. 



PAULINE. 

I am forbid to give my heart to thee; 
I am forbid to give my love; and all 
Thy heart, if 'tis not mine, let it befall 
That mine is thine, spite what the canons be. 

Another holds thy hand in his, and seel 

One word he breathes, "My wife!" "A wife in name I' 

Halts on thy lips, and who will utter blame? 

And yet — thou art his wife unfaithfully. 

For though no blemish doth thy soul defile. 
The might paternal which hath tied thee down 
To him for whom thou hast but scorn and frown, 
Doth almost hint ''In sin there is no guile!" 

And should I pine that thou art not a smile 
And lush perfumery to my life, a laugh 
And light of holy love? The world's best half 
I'd give without demur to own a while 

Thy coldest word's caressing, not to quaff 
Unholiness, but really for the soul, 
And not to loll and gaze, and not to troll 
For revelry, but in my heart's behalf. 

But I must stop — to think it can not be I 
Unless — unless — ^Why speak the rest tonight? 
Let's hide the tempting prospect from the sight, 
With other hopes deferred, expectantly. 



26 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



LISBETH. 

I sat last nig-ht my window near, 
And laid my head upon the sill, 

And thought of thee so far from here, 
While painting-' dreams of thee. 

My book was open at my side, 
But on the pag^e I saw no word 

That did not tell me ere it died 
Some pretty tale of thee. 

The night went by and streaks of morn 
Were palette-strewn upon the sky, 

And seemed as if they had been shorn 
From garments worn by thee. 

Kind Sleep came down and closed my eyes; 

Her voice was thine, her look was thine; 
She w^ore my rose of deep-red dyes 

With all the g-race of thee. 

And when I woke I glanced around 

Expecting surely thee to see 
With all thy raven glory crowned, 

And hear the laugh of thee. 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER. 27 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER. 

The face of the heaven is bright 

With its eyes alight; 
There's not a sound on the sleepy sea, 

Save kissed waves that flee: 
There's not a bird of night afloat, 

But some white-winged boat. 
And I watch within the lighthouse, 

Without friend but a mouse; 
Above the watchfire burns and warns; 

The bell-buoy mourns 
Below that women learn not to weep 

For murder of the deep. 
Beyond on shore are wife and child, 

And for each I have whiled 
Full forty moons aloof from them 

The groping ship to stem 
And guard and guide 'mongst rock and reef, 

The daggers of the thief 
That ocean is, when it would prowl. 

Concealed in cloudy cowl. 
The lighthouse man — who thinks of me 

If dutiful I be? 
The counseled sailor sails he by; 

Without a name am II 



28 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



THE BRIDAL OF THE DEAD. 

From the rising of the day star 

Until the fall of night, 
The song of women singing far 

Adown the vale of Cleite, 
Winged to me like a fancy flight 

My sore distress to soothe, 
A soft and gladsome chanting smooth 

Upon my grewsome plight. 

Still there I sat like urchin ta'en 

By fairies' mystic art. 
Or like the Spartan when the paean 

Struck sudden in the mart; 
And thought that bade me thence depart 

No briefest favor found, 
But every step, the happy sound 

Enmeshed, that stirred to start. 

Far, far below the heaving slope 

A cortege long wound on. 
Around the hillside wreathed with hope, 

But one was silent, wan. 
She lolled upon a flowered throne. 

As beauteous as the May, 
And woods bestowed their wildings gay, 

Wide open and unblown. 

The filial fondness of her hair 

That clung upon her neck; 
The cold, sharp eyes and vacant stare. 



THE BRIDAL OF THE DEAD. 29 

That stunned the gaze and reck: 
Yet on her cheek no stain, no speck, 

No blemish anywhere; 
A dulcet girl and queenly rare^ 

But who? and why bedeck? 

And why sits she so still, the while 

Around the garish car, 
A maiden throng with pretty wile 

Are following near and far. 
And flinging jest and flowery star, 

In wanton, witching guile. 
And singing thoral songs that roil 

The silences, and mar. 

A feast prepared, they seem to haste, 

Like guests elate and glad, 
Those who, with mirth, the mute, wide waste 

Inspire and make it mad. 
Of all anear but I was sad. 

But why my ken outpaced. 
For song and dance were interlaced— 

I was a friendless lad. 

And still my dim eyes scan the car. 

E'er slowly drawing near, 
And her, its lightless fixed star. 

The merry crowd I hear. 
And rising cheer on risen cheer. 

Happy as brides they are 
Who chant so wierdly, bar on bar. 

Around that barge or bier. 

My soul was caught of sweaty fear. 
Though sense no reason named; 



30 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

My sight grew dimmer, rapt, and drear 

The scene albeit enframed 
In russet giow, which evening" claimed 

As day's last tribute here. 
I trembled then. The train drew near 

Me of my dread ashamed. 

Now stranger rites at once begin 

About the rustic wain; 
Urged of some subtile will they win 

Forth an horrific strain, 
On bended knee, and cries of pain, 

Chill, harrowing shrieks, break in, 
And, shuddering at the impish din, 

The welkin garners rain. 

Cups of a ruby nectar gleam, 

And spluttering torches flit; 
Noise not of earthly birth, I deem. 

Grinds when a cresset's lit. 
The sun had sunk where salt seas sit, 

'Neath mountains' west-hung beam. 
And rock and roar a breaker theme; 

A priestess starts at it. 

Distraught and tousled priestess she. 

Who lifts the shimmering ciip 
Over the fire with chuckling glee, 

And phantasms conjures up; 
And gathering to the bowl, all sup, 

Whate'er these people be. 
Till a cogent impulse rises free, 

A master from the cup. 

What is the thrill that stabs me through? 
My head swims like a stream; 



THE BRIDAL OF THE DEAD. 31 

I sink to the green all damp with dew, 

And wonder if I dream; 
I am awake, and what may seem 

This awful time, 'tis true, 
For there's the heavens' jeweled blue, 

The moon-sprite's yellow beam. 

Zephyrs sigh on the woods" dark breast. 

The waves fret the coming tide; 
A shrub, by the amorous breeze caressed. 

Whispers low like a bride: 
And I feel my breath within me ride. 

As free from the curb's behest; 
My heart beats strong as after rest, 

And I know my senses lied. 

I fasten thought upon the scene, 

Its meaning try to cull, 
But never yet so strange had been 

My mind, so false and dull. 
I could no wise the purpose full 

From out the seeming take; 
I could no truthful notion make: 

The brain held carnival. 

And still I gazed in rapture there. 

And still they gradual moved. 
No voice had risen yet from where 

The lady sat beloved. 
And then a sudden wish behooved 

That I should follow too. 
And someone for the reason sue 

These whimsies were approved. 

I joined the frantic choir then, 
And reached its songless queen, 



32 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

And started at her face again, 

Emotionless and lean. 
I touched her hand that dropped between 

The smilax-woven rail, 
Where fluttered captive doves and quail 

And g-eese of foolish mien. 

Cold was her hand and pulseless now: 

The waxen girl was dead: 
And me, half -crazed, with fevered brow. 

They scowled at, round her bed. 
The muse had from their harpstrings sped, 

And from their mouths the word, 
And not a sound but murmurs stirred, 

And frightened glances fled. 

I thought them goblins at the first. 

They me a spectre dread. 
No shrilling outshriek curdling burst 

Upon my blanching head; 
But every word that I had said, 

A wondering stillness bore 
To them that scanned my visage o'er. 

And marvelling look rehearsed. 

Again I spoke, but doubting, slow. 

To one who stood beside. 
Begged her to tell that I might know 

Of her that seemed a bride, 
What gave the flow to music's tide. 

And what their counsel now, 
And why the rose-wreath clasped the brow 

The burial snood should hide. 

The flesh that sat enthroned was lost: 
Unto another bourne 



THE BRIDAL OF THE DEA.D. 33 

Had gone its spirit whilom tossed 

In earth's unkind sojourn, 
Save that a shrine at which to mourn 

Rem.ained for deep regret, 
And yet for weeping and the fret 

Fresh cheeks delighted burn. 

No answer quelled my growing hate, 

No look with pity fraught. 
I watched them all, with joy elate, 

Pass chattering at aught. 
And then their angry grumbling caught 

Declined and straining eye 
Peered through a misty screen hung high, 

And something wistful sought. 

Out from the parting drapery came — 

Which night had fashioned there — 
A barge embellished, wrought the same, 

But men the shaft pole bear. 
A harsh-toned chant, upon the air 

Long-heard was sudden still, 
And laughters loud the forest fill. 

As on they fare and fare. 

New joys the sensuous groups enslave, 

And jibe and song and mirth. 
Till light's reflex from the raveled wave 

Withdrew from the glooming earth; 
And in the dark, as from a hearth. 

Shot up blue, lurid flame. 
The mimes athwart of the wizard game. 

Queer in being and birth. 

Within the purple fire's grasp 
A resin torch is hung, 



34 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Another then, until its clasp 

A thousand leaps among, 
And madly seized the flambeaux swung. 

Illume the shadowy shore. 
And voices linked swell more and more 

A wild song, wildly sung! 

" Come to the marriage feast tonight 

Beside the waiting sea! 
The dead have come. The graveworm white 

Expects the revelry. 
The youth of death abideth he; 

The maid of death is here: 
The wedding guests are glad; the mere 

Is ready and the lea. 

And still the plaintive burthen heard 

Sailed o'er the raucous main: 
"O come! O come! to the wedding surd. 

Come from the wold and plain, 
Come from the skyward peaks again. 

Light of the vanished day, 
Sound of the sea and winds at play, 

Led by the noctial bird!" 

" Come ere the clammy sepulture 

Commands the plighted twain. 
It once has called and death's demure 

Must go when called again. 
The night speeds swift like courier fain: 

The dawn has kissed the peak; 
The stars are growing pale and weak. 

O come! forswear disdain!" 

A priest of youthful guise and mien. 
Stepped from the manly crowd, 



THE BRIDAL OF THE DEAD. 35 

And, from the maiden, she I've seen 

Before the cresset bowed; 
And voices neither low nor loud 

Invade the spot again, 
Soft and sad as the sound of rain 

Falling on snowy shroud. 

Dead youth and girl are lifted down, 

Within the elfin glare. 
She by a woman dusk and brown. 

And him the brawny bare. 
The querulous bridal service there 

In quaking tones is read, 
'Midst broken anthems overhead, 

Which float from everywhere. 

But hush! the rite is now begun, 

And trickles through the throng: 
"Dost thou who, twenty months and one. 

Hast stretched thee stark along 
The eerie cave, where never song. 

Nor glint of smiling day. 
Hath entered to maintain at bay 

The mute and darkling wrong." 

"Dost thou accept this prof erred mace, 

This thyme that binds the dead. 
Called from thy dolorous resting place 

Of quietude to wed 
With him who came to thee apace. 

Lovelorn to thy damp bed, 
Which all traditions bid, as said 

Within the Book of Grace.'" 

"Fair maiden, sister of good fate, 
Seest thou or hearest thou"/ 



36 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Speak throug-h the spirit clan sedate 

Bending attentive now! 
For thus the ritual runneth: "How 

Holily those who late, 
Oping the charnal wedding gate, 

By mace and thyme avow!" 

"How holy those who speak and hear 

By spiritual sense, 
Who, after passing through the mere 

Of death, come promptly hence, 
Because the call from dense suspense. 

Like hope o'er bearing fear. 
Hath uttered been, and bid the bier 

Yield up its charge intense!" 

Thus read the priest in lang-uage keen. 

With hands above the flame. 
Unto the girl, and all were seen 

To move, and slowly came 
Athwart the glow, as if a frame 

Of dazzling held the scene, 
And stood, as they had lately been. 

All silent in the drame. 

And hereupon a vestal rose. 

Amid the fire-red press. 
And joined the priest in calm repose. 

Lifting her hand, her dress 
With modest craft fell back, no less 

Her beauty to disclose 
Than manifest, in awful pose. 

Her consecrant distress. 

For Python-like she raved, and tore 
Her hair to words unsouled. 



THE BRIDAL OF THE DEAD. 37 

And when her twistings fierce no more 

Disturbed her heavenly mould, 
She sang-, immediately the cold, 

Lone stillness fled before, 
Unto the lifelike form, as o'er 

His clay no knell had tolled: 

"Dost thou, fair youth, obey 
The marriage call tonight? 
On nimble foot doth come the day 
In chausable of light.'" 

' ' The tomb hath let thee forth 
From all its ancient doom ; 
And coldly sleeps the frozen north, 
Enveloped in its gloom." 

"And till you twain be one, 
The boreal earth is sad, 
And ne'er shall know the thawing sun, 
And nevermore be glad.'' 

"Dost thou accept thy bride. 
Pure as an artist's prayer 
To Parian marble died, 
Unflecked by gnomes of air? 

' Dost thou, O frail, fond son of death, 

More beauteous I declare, 
Bend 'neath this yoke my formal breath 

Puts on thy soul to wear? 
' Tis long decreed and graven there, 

That thus the plighted swear, 
Whom dissolution hindereth 

The carnal bond to bear." 



38 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

" See ye this thong-, O man and maid, 

This mystic nuptial tie, 
Lovers that, ere the ritual's read, 

Out of the transient die. 
Must vowing- fasten on the thigh, 

Badg-e of confession said. 
Before the cold obsequial bed 

Has come forever nig-h?" 

"And dost thou, maid, and dost thou, man. 

Each other take to be. 
For all the journey now beg-an 

Beyond life's sophistry. 
Companions fast, and soon to see 

The lucence none may scan 
This side the grave, where never can 

Flourish but misery?" 

This said, the ready sponsors tell 

A love tale prior told. 
Where no one heard, by those whose knell 

Awaked the slumberous wold. 
The choir of men, no long-er cold, 

Like varivocal bell 
That glorifies a deed done well. 

Harmonious joy unfold: 

"Thee, sweet maid, my soul will wed. 

Thee, in thy beauty pale. 
And all the garlands on thy head. 

Kissed by the whispering gale. 
Know not such tender care, nor shall, 

Such sweetness as is shed 
Around thy fragrant nuptial bed. 

And death shall not prevail. " 



THE BRIDAL OF THE DEAD. 39 

And then the girlish singers, sooth, 

Chimed to a lulling- strain: 
Thee, sweet youth, sweet stifled youth, 

My soul will wed again. 
Forgotten now the olden pain, 

When thou was filched in truth 
From in my arms, when punic ruth 

Fled and I screamed in vain. ' ' 



And oh, the darksome staring day, 

The nigh,t with grief oppressed, 
The breeze that came and sought to play, 

My golden curls caressed I 
They brought me dreams of thee, my best, 

My glorious sculptured clay; 
They brought me promise seeming gay. 

But even hope distressed. " 



" But now I clasp thy hand once more. 

And lean upon thy breast, 
And all the woes that gathered o'er 

Are vanished from the west ; 
And I am glad that doom had wrest 

Thy goodliness before, 
That T might glean the happy store 

Which is the moment's guest." 



And so they sang. The rite was done. 

Reclined upon one car. 
The two returned just as the sun 

Shot up a blazing spar. 
And I could see them wending far 

Beyond the purple hills, 
Tracing their trail through daffodils. 

Gloomy and slow they are. 



40 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Slow o'er the fields, pathetic, slow! 

Festivity no more 
Astonished all the meadow low. 

The winds no longer bore 
Up to the mount a merry store 

Of shouts and laughs aflow 
On music's whims, but over all 

Fell morning like a pall. 



The day had come and they had gone. 

Whitherward evanished ? 
The brands of night no longer shone, 

Though smoke curled overhead. 
Nature was hushed. Then dawn with red 

The snowy summits tipped. 
And down and down the night robe slipped. 

Like to a vestment shed. 



It was a strange, improper mien 

For wedding guests to wear — 
The sadness where the joy had been, 

And silence here and there. 
No cymbals strike and tune the air ; 

No reed pipe and no strings ; 
No wedding bell in gladness rings ; 

No blazing and no blare. 

I saw the orange-blossomed bride 

Of my own land appear; 
I saw my sister's comely pride, 

And all the village near. 
And then methought I heard it clear, 

The horses champ and neigh. 
Galloping down the frozen way, 

Through frosty atmosphere. 



THE BRIDAL OF THE DEAD. 41 

I saw the far Columbia's beach 

Climb gradual from the sea, 
As like a giant in its reach, 

As misery is to me; 
Not even the wild, unbidden screech 

Of hidden owl will teach. 
Though here no comrade takes my hand, 

There's life upon the land. 

All of the past stood round me glad, 

Quietly glad and still: 
Hope in those days was never sad. 

And hardly ever ill; 
Hope of my youth so wont to thrill, 

So kind with praise and fame, 
Thatbuilded me a mighty name. 

As masons build a mill. 



And then I cried: ''Oh, God! Oh, God! 

Must I these wilds endure. 
This reeky soil, this tarnished sod. 

Desolate and impure. 
And must I, after days demure, 

Fall broken 'neath thy rod, 
Till death come down and, suasive, nod: 
" Ij only I am sure!" 

Oh, shall I ever see again 

My farm home on the hill? 
And may I kiss with pleasing pain 

My mother old and ill. 
And meet my father at the sill, 

The worn door sill I knew. 
And hold my sister fast and true? 

God grant me that I will. 



42 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

And how I long once more to seek 

The meadow lands below, 
The cattle, soft-eyed, fat and sleek, 

And lambs that bleating go, 
And my old cob that years ago 

My stanchest friend I made, 
Striding her back, or in her shade 

Sleeping beside the creek! 



I wonder now if all the boys 

That frolicked on the lawn, 
And all the girls — dear, dubious joys^ 

Recall the wayward one I 
I wonder if. when slant lights show 

Against the western wood, 
They sometimes meet and, kind and good, 

Remember Jack Magone. 



I see them sitting by the logs 

That crackle at their feet. 
And round the cheerful cider jogs, 

And crullers greasy, sweet: 
And from the rafters things to eat 

Hang tempting down to them. 
The flitch of bacon which the gem 

And silver leek betogs. 

I wonder if they think of me. 

Or count me dead or ill. 
I watch them; now they laugh — but see! 

Maud Minderly is still. 
She does not smile, but picks the frill 

That wriggles on her breast. 
And gazes at the dog-rose pressed 

And aromatic dill. 



THE BRIDAL OF THE DEAD. 43 

I sit upon the cottage stoop, 

In moody summertide, 
And tell her how with love I droop. 

And how my heart is tried. 
I beg again that she will chide, 

And send me far away. 
If her dear heart she cannot lay 

My own to beat beside. 



I see my shadow on the path 

Go pensive down the slope; 
I look not back, for vision hath 

No happiness, no hope; 
And rather far than moan and mope, 

I swear to wander off 
And dare the wilds of Malagoff, 

Or denser jungle ope. 

And now I sail upon the sea. 

And leave my land behind. 
Good-bye, fair land, though dear to me. 

Thy bonds are cut that bind. 
For Maud has bid me go, unkind! 

I love her and I hate, 
And what shall be my future fate, 

The past I have resigned. 

Upon this isle, where'er it be, 

Or 'neath the solar ray, 
Or 'neath the moon's pudicity, 

My doom is here to stay. 
And must I vex my hours away. 

And never hope to see 
What once was ecstacy to me. 

Blue eyes that flash and play. 



44 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

What, lo! upon the polished sea 

I stare, and something- there, 
With large white wings, broods drowsily 

Beneath the evening glare! 
A ship it is! My breast laid bare. 

Upon a willow tree, 
I hoist my rags, and lustily 

Shout like a trumpet's blare! 

And so today within this room 

I tell the ghoulish tale 
Of two, though dead, that wed in gloom 

Where customs strange prevail, 
A wondrous bourne, my whilom jail — 

No wonder that you blanch — ;; 
And you who know my spirit stanch, 

Behold my black hair pale. 

But where is Maud ? Is she not here V 

" Poor Maud and churchyard gray ! 
She loved you. Jack. I saw the tear 

Fall when you left that May. 
I saw her growing, day by day, 

More weary, woebegone, 
And like the moon she waned more wan. 

Poor Maud has gone away ! " 



INTROSPECTION. 45 



INTROSPECTION. 



O Lord ! my God ! I beg Thee now, 

Awhile 
To let me live, and cool my brow 

Awhile. 



No matter what, I'll ne'er be glad, 

I know ; 
From babyhood I grow more sad, 

I know. 



And though I gain what others lack, 

At times, 
On life I'd willing turn my back 

At times. 



I'd turn my back and go away 

Beyond, 
Where is no burning garish day. 

Beyond. 

For this, I know it like a truth, 

Sometime 
Will come upon my reckless youth, 

Sometime, 

I know not what, some hope I'll lose, 

I guess, 
Some something wished; I cannot choose; 

I guess. 



46 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



But let it be what it may be 

And pass, 
The light illumine cheerfully 

And pass. 

The day be even dead and dark 

To stay, 
My future fortune lean and stark 

To stay. 

What figure does it cut, pray tell ! 

I'll go 
To heaven high, or down to hell ! 

I'll go 
Wherever whangs the monstrous bell 
That overrules the will of man. 
And guides him wrong because it can. 



FOUR-YEAR-OLD. 47 



FOUR-YEAR-OLD. 

Skipping through the meadow, scolding on the way, 

Hied my little Nora, four years old today, 

Purer than the lily washed in pearly rain, 

Blushing as the rose does in the midst of pain. 

Tears stood in the portal of her hazel eye, 

Struggling out together wrestled sigh with sigh, 

Torn and flowing wildly like a flame in air, 

Tossed by breeze and coddled, silken ruddy hair; 

Naught to please or cheer her ; naught to ease her mind ; 

All was rough, she thought, and everyone unkind. 

Upon a budding bush, spreading in her path, 

Sang a yellow songbird, ignorant of wrath; 

Though the rain fell drizzly, vexing all the time. 

Though the clouds grew sullen o'er the summer prime, 

The peace that dwelt within him tooR the pulse of song, 

Warmed his little body but a finger long. 

Nora stopped to listen; hushed her fretting now; 

Why should gloomy f rownings mar her baby brow ? 

Speaking to the songster, kind and sweet at last, 

Forgotten was the sad time, just departed past : 
' Little bird, pray tell me, won't you, little bird, 

Where you learned that prettiest song I have ever heard?" 

Gladdening as the morning breaking from the night, 

Pleasant as the night time mystical with light. 

Looked the little Nora, penitent at heart, 

Wondering at the songbird and his native art. 
' You seem gay and happy like the flower you kiss, 

Seem to have forever earthly joy and bliss ; 

I am sad forever, like the roily stream. 

Murmuring as it does, even in my dream. 

The sun brings me no brightness laughing on my cheek ; 

The moon brings me no sleeping cosy, coy and meek. 

See how 'teeny ' you are I I'm a great big girl, 



48 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

With flowers blooming- on my cheek kissed by every curl. 
And all the people love me, though I don't deserve, 
Fondle and caress me, kiss my liplets' curve. 
Toss me for a plaything, hide for me to find, 
And buy me pretty trifles though I'm never kind. 
You have none to love you, none to call you ' sweet,' 
None to pat your little head and tickle little feet." 
And the bird kept singing in the blossomed bush, 
And Nora felt its gladness with a sort of hush. 
For if a little birdie could be happy, good, 
Surely she could also and surely, too, she would. 
" I guess its only badness," little Nora said, 
" And I will put some goodness in my flossy head." 



I OFTEN TRY TO SING THE DAYS. 49 



I OFTEN TRY TO SING THE DAYS. 

I often try to sing the days 

That toddling- childhood knew, 
But at each touch along- the maze 

Of slumbrous strings, my finger strays 
And starts unseemly sound, 

That like a shot bird, fluttering too, 

Falls dying to the ground. 

Somehow I find no flowers now, 

But withered stems and leaves : 
Somehow I know no fruited bough, 

But only cypress sheaves ; 
And lights are out and dark glooms hold 

A shroud on all, for all is cold. 

The tomb life's cold receives. 

And is no glimmer seen afar. 

No weakling spark t' enchant 
Me now ? Methinks I err. Some star 

Must rise with light aslant ; 
Each earthly woe has Bethlehem, 

The lost a Savior sent for them, 

In spite of cult or cant. 



50 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



ON THE FARM. 



Pretty lady from the city, 

Sitting- at the runnel's brink, 
Would you deign to have a pity, 

If you guessed of what I think ? 

Would you say it were a losing 
Of a wish more fit elsewhere. 
That I have no chance of choosing 

Of the kisses ripened there? 

That I dare not zone the tight waist 
Of the elf that holds my heart ; 
That her bosom, scorn-encased 

Lacks in mercy, not in art? 

I believe not, though you say it. 

Laving in the water's flow; 

Tongues may lie, but eyes may nay it, 
Spite the art the tongue may know. 

And thine eyes, clear-sparkling gems. 

Frightened somewhat, thoughtless why. 
Speak a speech, heart- apothegms, 

I mistake not, swain though I. 

And the heaving bosom too. 

Think you that I think it numb? 
And the twitching fingers, do 

They appear to me as dumb ? 



ON THE FARM. 51 

And the blush, the pallor, both 

Like twin g-ambollers on the lawn, 
Leaping-, hiding, kindly loth 

To be present or be gone ! 

You say "No" and they say " Yes;" 
Two say " Yes" and one says " No." 
Lady, I have made my guess; 

Happy swain I, happy Jo I 



52 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA, 



WHAT IS THIS LOVE ? 



I'm in love and I'm joyous to-day; 

Let me sing like the throstle at dawn, 
Like the nightengale sing in the May, 

In the night o'er the lawn. 
With his wantoning fellows at play, 

Where they royster about up on high, 
Or lurk "in the sedge of the run, 

Ere day is begun, 

Or night has gone by. 

On yesterday too I was yielding my soul 

To the smile of a girl whom I met in the maze 
Of the dance, when my hand touched hers in the roll 

And the whirl, with the lights ablaze. 
Yet no spirit of joy but a spectre of dole 

Came over me there as the merriment grew. 
She laughed as she frolicked around the room, 

With me there was gloom 

And the haze of the yew. 

Then what is this love and its sway V 

E'en echo is hushed in the vale. 
For she knows not to speak, and away 

In the distance 'tis quiet and pale ; 
And the hills are untaught, and the stream 

It is mute as a dream : 
The trees are all whispering " What?" 

Ah, life knoweth not 

The depth of the theme. 



WHAT IS THIS LOVE? 53 

Then ask me not what is this love! 

For I'm dull as the dullest that think, 
Sinking not to its soul, and above 

Where the lambent stars blink 
In the vault is the answer untold, 

As in meadow and wold 

Is the answer unheard ; 
And the ages that, falling, unfold 

From theuprolled sky, 

Will be witless as I. 



54 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



DISENCHANTMENT. 

I was enchanted like the morn, 
When peeps the amorous sun, 

Above the wheat, behind the corn, 
When nig-ht is done. 

Wild flowers blown of health and joy 
Are blushing- on her cheek, 

And in her eye the glance is coy, 
And warm and meek. 

But well- a- day! while in the dance. 

And spinning dizzy-fleet, 
I looked below, and,'curse the chance! 

I saw her feet. 



GOOD-BYE, MY BOOKS. 55 



GOOD-BYE, MY BOOKS. 



I must look back, before I go, 

Along my path with flowerets strown. 

And sparkling- thought gems hitherto. 
With singing leaves that I have known. 

And lilting rills that ripple low, 
I sometimes called my own. 

Good-bye to all! How dusk the day! 

No more I'll seek you loverly. 
Nor place the kiss that grieved to stay. 

Nor gaze in pleasant re very, 
Picking my harp in hope to play 

As you have played for me. 

I dwell with Blackstone, Coke and Hale — 
How many more? God save the mark! 

Shall I forget you, Muses pale, 
As on I plod the devious park, 

And watch the marshaled facts assail, 
While upward wheels the lark ? 

Shall I forget how kind you came. 
And soothed my brow when I was mad, 

And kindled hot the blush of shame. 
When at some heartbreak overglad. 

And gave me praise instead of blame. 
And love when I was sad? 

And when fair women led me on. 

In spite of all my struggling still. 
And tricked me by the light that shone 



56 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Within her eye— a snake's eye till 
I turned to you and then was gone — 
You banned the peevish ill. 

You told me other men had slipped 
Within the noose of wily maid; 

That better men had withered nipped 
By frosty word's unsighted blade, 

And howsoe'er my wings be clipped, 
I should not be afraid, 

I am forbid to take your hand 
And look into your tender eye ; 

I am forbid to seek your band 

And laugh with you or with you sigh, 

To revel in the midnight land 
As once, both you and I. 

But in some time not far away 
I'll call and ask for you again, 

And look into your face and say 
What now I think with constant pain, 

And at that time I hope and pray 
I may not love in vain. 



A MOOD OF MINE. 57 



A MOOD OF MINE. 

My soul is like a morning- dim, 

When clouds beset the sun, 
Or when the sylvan choral hymn 

Is hushed, ere half begun, 
By squawking- rooks that mock the run 
Of avian song. 

The light my eyes desired to see 

Is darkened, and the day 
Is murk and sodden. Ah I from me 

Is happiness astray. 
Thoug-h other things seem glad and gay, 
I must be sad. 

And should I speak the word " Farewell ! " 

Pronounce my constant doom, 
And toll the dullard groaning bell 

While her no griefs consume. 
Aye, beg the bondage of the tomb 
To prove my woe ? 

Which is the best — to die or live? 

Because my hope is lost, 
Because I get not what I give, 

When life is overcrossed, 
And every wish is bandied, tossed 
About the time. 

' Seek home within another heart; 

Another can be found I ' ' 
Pooh! so they say; but I've no art 

To thrid a mazy round, 
Pretending that my heart is sound 
That festers yet. 



58 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



OH, THAT I COULD FORGET! 

Oh, that I could forget thy face, 
So sadly sweet and sweetly sad, 

So touched with kindliness and grace, 
Though ignorant of what is glad. 

I hardly knew thee very well, 

But knew enough to love thee much. 

For o'er me strong there came a spell — 
Unbroken yet; ne'er felt I such. 

I met thee once; long years have gone 
Since then, but here I guard thee still; 

The storied page runs runic on, 
All blank to me or written ill, 

Because it tells me naught of thee 
Since last I saw thee young and fair, 

When all the cheer of youth would be 
Like sunlight round thee everywhere. 

Thou fledst away. No more I saw 
Thy happy mien, thy harmless guile, 

But yet I feel a sort of awe 
Upon me from thine earliest smile. 

I reck the bar that stands between 
All honest thought by me of thee. 

But sometimes sin so much, I ween, 
To wish it broken down for me. 



SORROW. 59 



SORROW. 

O Sorrow, yew-wreathed, how divine art thou I 
The sinful soul thou chastenest, and a ray 
From out thy seeming dark brings light like day 
To him thou seemst with burdens sore to bow. 
And why should man lament because his brow 
With light of darkness born grows bright enow ? 
Yet who weeps not if thou in wandering stop 
And point with finger wan to Aidenn's spot ? 
The pomp and flashing of the thoughtless world, 
Beauteous in being, fading steal away 
Some peace; but thou dost know this scene enfurled 
With pain, the smile but feigning tears to stay. 
Still, most would will the far Eternal hurled 
From mind to spend at ease a passing day. 



60 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



THRENODY. 

Silent the night, and the heaven far 
Looks sad on the earth and the sea; 

Dolesome the vault; no firstling- star 
Peeps out like a spark o'er the lea. 

For Death has taken my child away, 
Has stolen ray half-blown flower, 

But he can not filch the bud today 
That opens on memory's bower. 

Methinks I see her now adown. 
Where romps the playful brook, 

Sportive around the rough rocks brown. 
And mischief in her look. 

My plaintive soul is filled with woe. 
Though smiles begem the wold, 

Though gambols now the soft-eyed doe. 
And hushed the bell that tolled. 

The moon is just as mild as then, 

The sun as lusty still. 
And meads put on their gayest when 

There's springtime on the hill. 

The birds sing out as joyfully 

In willows by the stream, 
And carol lays of love to me, 

Like music of a dream. 



THRENODY. 61 



But always I refuse to care 
For gladness of the earth, 

For fragrance in the morning air, 
And sprightliness of mirth. 



What is, but what has been, 
Although the past comes at my beck 
And scatters where I gleam. 

The more it speaks of pleasant things 

I knew in other times, 
And joys that yet may come on wings, 

'Mid happy sounding chimes. 

Dead murky mists like witches troop 

Around me in the gloom, 
And half-born hopings broken droop 

And haunt my lonely room. 

The past I ne'er can send away; 

I love it more than life; 
The love that died yet lives today, 

Through struggle and through strife. 

The loving heart once sorrow-clad, 
Bereft of childhood's bloom, 

There is no skill to make it glad. 
Except caressing gloom. 

No earthly hope, no baby smile. 

No melody is near, 
But tells of one's benignant guile. 

That now no more is here; 



62 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

But tells of soft, endearing- bliss, 
The coo, the lisp, the word, 

Of lips that gave the honied kiss, 
The voice henceforth unheard. 



LULLABY. 63 



LULLABY. 

Oh, Love, they tell me thou art sweet, 

They tell me thou art pure, 
And yet the smiles of woman fleet, 

When baby's smiles allure. 

For I have known the frenzied flame 

That woman lit in me, 
But now I mourn the mortal shame, 

Its reckless infamy. 

But in the child that chuckles low. 
Upon my bounding knee, 

There is a love benign to know, 
Felicity for me. 

Then sing my little prattler, sing I 

Thy coo has kindled joy; 
No guile is in thee, little thing. 

Satiety, nor cloy. 

Ah, would thy mother she were here 

To share my nightly bliss, 
And charm away thy lonesome tear 

With her maternal kiss. 

She will not come though I have sworn 

The past should be forgot. 
And all my ancient wrath and scorn 

Her feebleness begot. 



64 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



Then coo, my little bantling-, coo, 

And swing upon my knee. 
These moments all were born and grew 

For our glad minstrelsy. 

I loved thy mother, oh, how well! 

But she has gone away; 
All muffled is the marriag-e bell. 

And bleak would be the day, 

If thou shouldst hush thy lisping- song-. 
Like flute notes heard afar. 

And quench thy light that leans along 
The dark, thou single star. 



A DRINKING SONG 65 



A DRINKING SONG. 

Pill, fill the wine-cup full! 
Let it laug-h in the face of youth and maid ! 
It is rich as rubies and soft as wooll 

Let its lush, red lip to the girlish dip, 
For there's cheer in it for the shy and staid! 

Ah, there's the rhythm of song; 
There poetry quaffs the spirit that plays. 
And there is the fun of the noisy throng! 

It weaves the spell of the dance and well. 
It moves coy feet like the bold along. 

And why should we shun it at all? 
For a measure of wine the Son of God 
Delivered the might which was held in thrall; 

It was then began the Sorrowful Man 
The work of restoring the human clod. 

Why should we dread its power? 
What else has made such masterly fest and feat? 
It gladdens the day for it speeds the hour. 

And it coaxes hope back to the brain again. 
When trouble has banished it off of its beat. 

And grant it has done some hurt! 
But prayer has vanquished a glorious mind, 
And love has begotten the noisome flirt. 

You must treat the wine like a gift devine— 
God's gifts were never for trouble designed. 



66 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



TO MY WATCH. 



No more, young moments, down the watch's face 
Sluggishly drip, but like some tide-chased brook. 
By stormy wind pursued, aflfrighted look 
And flee. I scan thy face, an open book. 
And think I read. Thy dial shades I trace 
Chill tremblingly, and fear lest thou enlace 
False seeming in thy cozy ingle-nook. 

Thy truth I doubt; thy fair outspeech I fear. 
Question each hint, each signaled statement deem 
The outer garb of hidden lies ateem. 
With ensign fair, the pirate's pennon's stream 
Upon the air. And thus from early morn I dream; 
Thus at noon and onward do I pensive peer 
At every turn, and doubt howe'er thou veer. 
Because so slow thy moment-children seem. 

But thus it is forever when the mind 
Doth bear the burden of a special hour, 
When one is wont to visit lady's bower. 
Or waits his lady's entrance with a flower. 
No matter how devoted thou doth grind 
The tiny grains of day, thy work assigned, 
Thou art no more trustworthy than a Giaour. 



SYMPTOMS. 67 



SYMPTOMS. 

I know no rest, and though some skill 
Could heal forthwith the wound I know, 
And though I felt the pang- must kill, 
I would not bid it go. 

What if the harrying, glad ill ease 
Of hope and doubting, joyous woe. 
By some deft spell I could appease? 
I'd keep it hid below. 

Though all my days with languor droop, 
Though all my nights dream-tortured flow, 
And though throughout them phantoms troop, 
I'd rather have it so. 

Though haggard wanness with me sate. 
And palsied fetters cramped me, oh, 
And thou shouldst point the open gate, 
I would not, would not go. 

Until thou tell me, "Nay in vain 
Thy hope is born, thy loving woe," 
Until thou send me forth again, 
I do not choose to go. 



68 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



TO FRANCES FOLSOM CLEVELAND. 



(Written to be pronounced by MissM. O'Brien, of Lynchburg, Virginia, on 
the occasion of a visit expected from Mrs. Cleveland. March 2, 1888.) 



What need have we to tell our ceaseless thanks, 
When all the agents of the mighty mind, 

Fulfill our wish, and by old James's banks 
In songs it sounds and rises on the wind. 

The woodland's purred and soft, harmonious lay 
To listening cloud unfolds the potent spell. 

And night is married to the blushing day 
By fire's glow and glory of the bell. 

We ship our gladness on the burdened gale, 
And down the garnished stream it tacks and veers; 

It flaunts its colors bright on every sail. 
On every cockleshell that stands or steers. 

Throughout the land, on mountain high or hill. 
In valley deep or dingle stooping down, 

The note is varied, but the votive will 
Moves all for her, the queen without a crown. 

Go, river James, and to thy children all. 
That busy come caressing to thy side, 

Recite in murmured joyaunce every call 
That wakes the echoes on thy panting tide ; 

Go with thy wealth of rapture to the mead. 
And pour the flooding pleasure from thy breast; 



TO FRANCES FOLSOM CLEVELAND. 69 

Go to the woods and fill their sylvan creed 
With her, of womanhood, like Mary, blest. 

And noise abroad the radiant queen has come 
Among- thy hills to greet her children here, 

Where strikes the bugle blast, and rolls the drum, 
And palpitates the conscious atmosphere. 

Ye, peaks of Otter whom ambition swells 

Up to the racetrack where the planets course. 

Hear ye, the din and rumble of the bells, . 

The shouts of men and merry neigh of horse? 

To you in pride of heart we used to point. 
And called you our twin sentinels before, 

Today we banish you; today anoint 
Another pride, though you the snub deplore. 

The stars peep out, the bashful moon comes forth — 
Perhaps the sun regrets his sway is o'er — 

The compass star that sparkles in the north, 
Is brighter yet and seems to brighten more. 

When nature doth such ecstacy confess, 
Should man withold the symbols of his joy? 

Ring out, brass bells, nor screech ye whistles, less: 
Excess cannot befall, nor could it cloy. 

Pray, lady, let my feeble voice be heard. 
An emphasis like that which silence makes, 

To knit the speech or show the pregnant word; 
'Tis worth but little more than snowy flakes. 

Attuned into the chorus of this wold, 
My note of welcome list; in me sing all. 



70 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

The babe, the youth, the mother frail and old. 
And manhood's swelling- sound outbursting thrall. 

Welcome, thou, whom hearts have yearned for long: 
Thy sunny smile the spark announced before I 

Welcome! the heights cry out aloud and long. 
Here is our home; its wealth is all thy store. 

Welcome again I ten thousand welcomes lift. 
Ye, who around stand with the fixed eye; 

Welcome again! ten thousand welcomes' gift 
Is scant for her for whom the cities vie. 

Welcome again! ten thousand welcomes pour! 

Shout ye people loud; raise the rousing roar! 
The heavens give back the sound that rose before. 

Welcome we give; we cannot give you more. 



CARMELITA. 71 



CARMELITA. 

Though she is not as beautiful as nig-ht, — 

And yet she is, I swear, — 
In all my dreamed perfection is she dig-ht: 
A countenance as fresh as orchids and as rare, 
Painting of the Autumn there: 
Semblance of the evening is her hair; 
New-blown roses dimmer than her cheek: 
And her smiles are like the incense kind of prayer. 
She's a crystal in her innocent delight. 
A shapen thought divine, 
A music to the sight. 
And as playful as the fay that laughs in wine. 



72 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



INCONSTANCY'S CONFESSION. 

Say, tell me dear one, is it sin 

That I forgot a little time, 
How I delig-hted was within 

Thy beauty's balmy, sunny clime. 

Unfair the man that can forg-et. 
In newer glory, what is past; 

Nathless thy tears and sighs and fret 
To those like me who love the last. 

Here do I own the sin's full scope: 

I fell away without regret, 
Forsook the tenderness of hope 
Which maybe you would give me yet. 

Believe at least I think of thee: 
The flesh is false; the soul is true: 

For in the flesh can never be 
The firm devotion that is due. 

And in the midnight's dungeon hour, 
When sleep should fold diurnal care, 

I stare awake, and thou the flower. 
That blooms like hope upon despair. 

Thou art the fancied form that stands 
Against my troubled couch at watch, 

While drip the hasty fateful sands, 
Scoring the moments notch by notch. 

But after all it is the same, 
Whether we love or simply feign; 

Well-love we might, but this the blame. 
No fellow-feeling did we deign. 



HOPE. 73 



HOPE. 

Hope like a little bird 

Flieth between 
Life and the voices heard 

Over the screen, 
Telling in pretty word, 
Telling- the truth averred, 

Centuries been. 

Say, does the demon, Death, 

Win over all? 
Lieth the soul beneath 

Funeral pall? 
Not the clod, 'tis the breath 
That mysical hovereth. 

Bodies that fall. 

Sure there is hid away, 

Deep in this shrine. 
Something not of a day 

Fevered like wine. 
Eye-spark that burns away, 
Cheek like the vermeil May, 

Death it is thine. 

What if the gospel fail, 

God be a dream! 
Ne'er did dream so avail 

Bountiful theme, 
Sooth this inncessant gale, 
Life, with its swish and wail. 

Noisy and breme. 



74 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



ON RETURNING TO ST. CHARLES. 

I'm back ag'ain! I'm back again! 

How g'lad my pulses beat! 
I've come to loose my heart from bane. 

Here at my Lady's feet. 

I'm back again! I'm back again! 

Why should I weep the past? 
Can sorrow circle near this fane, 

O'er my pleased soul at last. 

I'm back ag-ain! I'm back again! 

Oh, how the heart-throb thrills! 
Now g-one the storm-cloud's pelting- rain. 

And come the bathing- rills. 

I'm back again! I'm back again! 
I'm back again, I'm back again! 

And sit near peace alone, 
And hear it whisper o'er the grain: 

"Weep now no more nor groan." 

I'm back again, I'm back again! 

Safe from the lashing surge! 
Broken the bondage, snapped the chain. 

Silent the whining- dirge! 

I'm back again! I'm back again! 

Calm and soothed to rest. 
Uplifting a hymn o'er the bier of pain, 

Dead in my gladdened breast. 



ON RETURNING TO ST. CHARLES. 

I know the distant world is vain, 
And bide with peace alone, 

Hearing" its voice behind the grain: 
"Weep now no more nor moan." 



76 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



MOTHER MARY. 

Mother Mary, teach to me 
The trail to Virtue's lodge, 

And teach me how the sin to dodg-e 
That dog-s my steps tonight. 

1 strive, I strain, I g-roan, O see 
Of fig-ht how full I am! 

To Satan I'm a weakly lamb 
Without some help to fight. 

Then smile thy spirit into me, 
For sword and glaive and shield, 
And I shall strew the battle-field 

With all the fiends I smite. 

Then, Mother Mary, smile on me 

A blessing for the fray; 

Thy Son will have the glory, yea, 
And thou wilt share aright. 



CUPID S SHOT. • 77 



CUPID'S SHOT. 

A pleasant pain o'erwhelms me, 
And whirring- to my soul 
Makes me know a heaven ere a death. 
I would give my latest breath 
To sip there at that bowl 
That's moulded of thy mouth, 
In the languor of the south, 
Where Cupid bends his bow right rogueishly 

You know not nor, though fain I'd tell, 

Shall I the secret speak;. 
Hate might live where once was hope, 

Disaster seek me where I grope. 

Timid lover like a sneak. 

'Tis better far to know 

Naught for sure than conscious go 
All disillusioned down to hopeless hell. 



78 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



RETROSPECTIVE. 

Last night I saw thy coUeg-e, Charles, 

Rise graceful from the oaken gnarls 

That hang like fawning courtiers round. 

Amid the spheric swishing sound, 

Thy praises swelled in sylvan song. 

Like organ numbers urged along. 

The breathing of the breezes there 

Intoned a chant upon the air. 

The music seemed ^olian sped 

To charm the darkness overhead, 

That fell around thee like the stole 

The priest puts on when some poor soul 

Has quit its earthly shrine at last 

And left behind it but the past. 

And long the forest echoes roll, 

From every tree exacting toll. 

Till every bush and boxwood brake 

A sweeter rondel tries to wake. 

Till every leaf its harpstrings brushed, 

And all the elfin sneers were hushed. 

Thy noble head was held aloft, 

And gazed beyond the minster croft; 

The timid-looking purpling hills. 

Which seemed expecting promised ills, 

Crept slowly to thy footstool there. 

With lowly head and servile air, 

Then rose as if a kindly word 

Had taught them all how much they erred. 

The more I looked the more the thought 

That fairy hands had on thee wrought 

The glowing spell that lit thy face. 

And threw a rapture round the place. 



RETROSPECTIVE. 

Upon me grew unconsciously, 

As gladness does and minstrelsy. 

And then again the dreamy loom 

Wove all about a sort of gloom. 

Adown I walked thy sounding halls, 

Which started quick at my footfalls, 

And seemed a thousand ghosts to bring 

Upon my passage clamoring, 

With hollow voice and rasping laugh, 

Like drunken witches when they quaff 

Their wonted draught at dark of moon, 

Beneath the willows, while they croon 

Their dismal music to the sound 

Of crackling embers on the ground. 

Yet onward swift the dark I cleft. 

Flinging to right hand and to left, 

With constant wish to keep behind 

The forms fantastic to my mind. 

At last I reached the plain below, 

To where thy childnen gladly go 

To seek a wintry pastime, free 

From praying task and psaltery, 

The class room dull, the studyhall, 

The diningroom, the bedroom, all 

The little things that made up life, 

Which clanging bell, just like a knife, 

Divided into slices — gong 

That measured duties, short or long. 

The maxims in that barren room, 

The moonbeams struggling through the womb 

Of darkness, big with half-felt fears, 

And creatures of the impish meres, 

I scarce can read, but loose the sigh, 

And heave the breast, as each scene nigh, 

Not well deciphered, calls to yiew 

The vanished faces that I knew. 

And now I stand and pensive mope 



SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Beside the doors that outward ope 

Upon the campus where the games 

And gambols boyish spirit claims, 

Once used to be, when I was young, 

Where many stingless jests were sprung, 

Where college pranks and college glees, 

Were played or sung beneath the trees. 

I thought of many a victory won, 

Where vanquished, when the fight was done, 

To victor came, the hand held out. 

In honor of the finished bout. 

And many a feat accomplished there 

No record knows, but if the air 

Could tell it all throughout the world. 

Of jump excelling, hammer hurled, 

The sportsmen would the prowess laud, 

And print it in the press abroad. 

But back upon the corridor, 

Where often in the days of yore, 

The feet of holy priests have sped, 

On many an errand duty-led, 

Where many a youth excited glowed 

At tales of lands with heathens sowed, 

Where the Paynim pauses in prayer 

His brawny breast with zeal to tear. 

Where the Hottentot basks away 

In torrid clime his carnal day. 

And the Ethiop mute before his God, 

Uplifts the soul of prayer, the rod. 

There many a boy has tacit sworn 

His future to the Afric bourne, 

To bring the darkened man again 

Back to the God who once had been 

His solace in the pasture land, 

Beyond the Jordan's fruitful strand. 



RETROSPECTIVE. 81 

Thus far I dreamed without disgust. 

The ugly priest that g-rinned, a rust 

On human nature, not yet had stuck 

His cassock on the scene. 'Tvvas luck 

For me to go so far without 

The torment of his face about, 

Intruding- like an omen ill 

Human garbage and human swill, 

Fashioned to scare a child at play, 

Or fright the goblins damned away. 

Red like a hunk of fresh-killed beef. 

Without a trait to give relief. 

Meagre and gaunt, and false and cold, 

A living sin, a virtue sold, 

A sordid heart, athirst for praise, 

A scrivener of rondelays. 

And puling sonnets that made the moon 

As crazy as a sorry loon, 

So long as he could have it rhyme, 

With anything, whate'er the chime. 

Behold the fustain sonneteer, 

Whose ravings rhyme with blear and leer, 

Whose metaphor is clearly drunk< 

Or redolent of "hoppy" bunk, 

Whose rhythm has a bible-back. 

With many a rip and many a crack, 

Whose puny thoughts wrapped up in prose 

Would do dishonor to their clothes. 

And while he prates of Keats and Poe, 

Those gentlemen he pesters so, 

That were they here again they'd go. 

In self-protection down below. 

Unfrock his lay desquamative. 

The wretched rhymster could not live; 

Or brush his furfuraceous prose, 

And he will sink into a dose, 

And cease the literary throes 



82 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Which have exuded odes by scores 

Less literary than his snores. 

The pimples on his muse's face 

Are acne of the blood's disgrace. 

How can a muse beg-otten so 

Expect to hide the horrid woe, 

Its sire sends as heritage 

Along the veins from age to age, 

For poetasts to slobber "slick" 

Upon the page when they are sick, 

With fevers called the scribbler's itch, 

Or prurience, I can't say which. 

And when he taught the English class. 

With critiques wild he played the ass. 

Perhaps he heard of critic's pen, 

And sidled "slommick" from his den 

To show the boys what master mind 

Was in his noddle snug confined. 

So, on the margin of the sheet 

A scurfy line, that smelled of peat. 

He scrawled, rejoiced, elate to tease 

The boyish author, and to please 

His ripe taste for cacophonies. 

Yes, scrofulous, scorbutic he, 

In soul he was especially. 

In case a dog should chance to bark. 

At once was lit his witty spark. 

And language that — but I'll shut up — 

He shouted out and shamed the pup. 

And this was wit he thought. Alas ! 

That such abortion came to pass. 

I tell the truth of me he made 

His special butt. Indeed he flayed 

Me till he tired, and as I was 

A student then — how much undoes, 

A goodly work, a silly one — 

To serve my God I had begun 



RETROSPECTIVE. 83 

The priestly role to undertake. 

But he had nearly made a rake 

Of me by gibe unkind and mean 

That cut me like a rapier keen. 

The killing vengeance of would seize 

And urge me on by slow degrees 

To nick his heart degenerate hid 

Beneath a vellum frame, and did 

The will divine recant its law 

A moment, free from checking aw>3, 

I had dug the poinard to the hilt 

That it might reach the seat of guilt. 

Or sped the leaden missile swift, 

To gloat upon the gaping rift 

It made. But it was not to be, 

And I am glad exultingly. 

Let him, who will, distrust my word. 

But hold his peace intent and surd. 

Scorn not a transmutated man, 

Lest danger dog your path, and span 

Your life with fear. And oh, to you. 

Whom once I knew and loving knew 

As faithful friends, and tried and true, 

Accept my song with patient smile 

Nor curl your lip in scorn the while. 

Out of a bosom really good, 

Make not th' unkindness hatch that would, 

But if a prayer is sleeping there. 

Awake it for its strengthening care. 

My lay breaks forth from out the gloom 

Of purpose missed, and in its room 

Is nothing left but anguish keen 

And sullen grief for what has bean. 

My former aim I constant shun. 

As constant seek another one, 

As once the other iBrm I sought. 

And who will say I have been taught 



84 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

A better way? Unto the priest 

I looked for model or, at least, 

A being- filled with sweet and mild. 

Uplifting- of the soul, and wiled 

I was of all my fondest hope. 

I saw th' anointed creature mope 

Along- with head unfinished, bald, 

Bereft of hair as if the scald 

Of steam had stung- and marked him well, 

A brand enregistered of hell. 

Save o'er the ears where bristles spread, 

Expand anomalous. The head, 

Of horrent make, peeps out uncouth, 

A parody on beauteous youth, 

A nasty imag-e, coarse and red. 

As if to nog-gins it were wed. 

And supped, a vicious, drunken god 

Of wine, with clusters on a rod. 

Behold the body ! and the heart 

Of dreader aspect, and the mart 

Of all crude passions dressed in wit. 

Fetid in smell, erotic. It 

Exhaled a stink like sulphur burned , 

And every normal stomach turned. 

And on the chin — a porcupine 

Would never wear such beard as thine! 

And sure such stiffness could not grow, 

Except from rocky subsoil. Go, 

Thou filthy libel on the race. 

To speak but of thy form's disgrace. 

To wallowing swine, from which has sprung 

The ruck that oozes from thy tongue ! 

Revile your kind, and do not seek. 

Among the godlike human , freak 

Of tortured nature, thus to wreak 

Avengeance for thy fate, nor me 

Select for putrid belch of thee I 



RRTROSPECTIVE. 85 

I looked upon the priest to tell 

Me how to save my soul from hell; 

To call with suasive voice from deeds 

Or haunts Satanic, not sow seeds 

Despondent in my breast, and force 

My path awry. The g-entle horse 

Is led astray, rejects the rein, 

When wrong-ly ruled and lashed again. 

And hurls the testy rider down. 

Why etch the unaccustomed frown 

Upon the mild unruffled brow, 

Induce -no thought but vengeance now. 

I thought to have my soul, instinct 

With virtue, grow apace, so linked 

Unto the sanctity I dreamed 

Dwelled with the priest, and blessing beamed 

Around him like a softened light. 

That glorifies the shades of night. 

But I was chastened sadly when 

My primal gaze, of blackrobed men 

Selected him, this wretched one. 

Especially to fall upon, 

Whose twisted figure, like a rope, 

Hung loose, and looked a carnal trope. 

Where yet survived the brutish snarl, 

Hyena grin at simian quarrel. 

Without a trace of godlike stamp — 

A mental quack and moral tramp. 

And yet I bore, and fetched my strength 

The past to blink, forgot at length 

What I had suffered, (kept no tab) 

The ruthless jest and endless gab. 

One fatal day a pun he shot 

That hit me in a tender spot. 

And hurried through. But had he ceased 

To worry me, and not increased 

His morbid pleasure at the blush 



86 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

He gave my cheek, there would be hush 

Of all my plaint and all my hate, 

Beginning- at that very date. 

But he was vain to make me squirm, 

Like beetle in the burning- sperm. 

He was so happy at success — 

A g-iggling- devil and no less — 

For all the world he would not quit 

The practice of his slimy wit. 

He struck today, tomorrow sneered, 

The next day laug-hed and pulled his beard. 

So, I do say again, the soul 

Within me changed, and through me stole 

A hatred of the priest, and well 

I loathe the horrid thought. A hell 

He built in me. The frequent bell, 

Which hailed the hours as they came fast, 

By name, and ushered to the past. 

To store their varied product up. 

Perceived from me a mouldy crop, 

A wilted harvest, damp and rank. 

From which the misty vapors stank. 

I had no pleasure in my work. 

Which I preferred indeed to shirk. 

Because I needed all my day. 

To engineer a potent way 

To even up for every jab. 

For every unrequired stab. 

I hold my task is nearly done: 

I'll be content when I have run 

The gamut through from do to si, 

In this avenging melody. 

Perhaps you think I'm overglum, 

And maybe so, but hither come, 

And listen to my cause of hate 

A little yet; the hour's not late; 

For it will do me good to know 



RETROSPECTIVE. 87 

Another hearkens to ray woe. 

I think that I can prove my case 

Is founded on sufficient base. 

Let no demurrer interpose 

To hide the facts for which I rose. 

Had I been like to other boys, 

And shared their pains and shared their joys, 

I could have borne with easy mind 

The hurts at which I peaked and pined. 

But shut from boyhood's fun I spent 

My moments all in discontent, 

Compelled to shun the prankish race, 

With gig-gling- g-irls I had to chase, 

And thus perforce I did contract 

Some leaning- to the blushing act, 

A bashfulness that stung my face, 

The where it would the maiden grace. 

Had he been kind he would have seen, 

The anguish in the pallid mien; 

Had he been good he would have tried 

To cheer me up, not hurt my pride; 

Had he been fair he would have known 

It was unjust to make me groan; 

Had he been true, he would have helped 

Me on, not at my efforts yelped, 

Like any cur that frets to see 

Another prosper happily; 

Had he been priest in very truth. 

He would have offered to my youth, 

A little kindness, little ruth. 

Instead of throwing mental stones 

That broke my spirit, not my bones; 

Had he been man he would have felt 

The symptoms of it in his pelt. 

The flambeaux would have left his face 

For symbols of a saving grace: 

His lips had covered up his teeth, 



SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

And kept his fetid breath beneath. 
Now tell me if in equal strait, 
Tormented, bothered and distrait, 
By such a changeling you had been, 
You would have stood his antics e'en 
As well and patiently as I. 
Why was he born? I've wondered why. 
By nature I was wont to yield 
To every "tough" that pranked afield, 
But here I planted firm my foot. 
And firmly here I buried root. 
One injury I could not bear. 
Beset my breast uncovered there. 
And every stanchion, prop and stay 
Was broken from its bed away. 
Contemned my efi'orts for my God, 
This fatal man spared not the rod. 
To friend and foe he called me lout, 
And blandly bowed at every shout. 
The gangrened larynx blurted out. 
Whenever he got "fresh" and "gay" 
To please the few that went his way. 
But let him be. Perhaps he's dead. 
God's vengeance fall not on his head! 
I would not carry horrid hate 
Up to the bright eternal gate. 
Nor even down to bounds of hell; 
If there he be, well, I say — well, 
I don't believe he suffers much; 
I don't believe he needs a crutch 
To help him o'er the heated pave; 
He'll like it too, the past-grand knave. 
If here, within the inner guild 
Of hoggish filthiness, well filled 
With hog-wash, does he moil and root 
In mental ordure, with his snoot. 
Exceptionally skilled and pat 



RETROSPECTIVE. 89 

For dirty business such as that. 

A brazen ring should pierce his snou'.. 

To haul the smutty beast about. 

An otfal-puking pig- is he, 

That licks his vomit lovingly. 

Behold the noble King of Dirt. 

Within the kingdom of a shirt! 

Bow down your heads and kiss the ground! 

Bring forth the bugles! Let them sound! 

Ye human vultures, pregnant sluts. 

Delight this greasy string of guts, 

For he is chief among your kind. 

The Crown Prince for the lead designed. 

A lengthy maggot dwells in him, 

And twists its dwelling, loose and slim. 

But let it be. He has an end; 

His life has not a single friend. 

It is a pity thus to shoot. 

Good powder into such a brute. 

And even if we tried to wrest 

Him from the vermin in his breast. 

He'd plead with us to let them stay 

And pass with him his life away. 

You cannot teach the crawling snake 

To cease its wriggling, or the drake 

To check indecency till night, 

The leper to keep out of sight. 

The sow to eat with knife and fork, 

The freshet mouth to fix a cork. 

You cannot change the leopard's spots, 

By saying they are polka-dots; 

You can not change a common beast 

By bidding it unto a feast. 

No chemical on earth, 'tis sad, 

Can make that good whose nature's bad; 

And virtue bold can not break in 

Through scaly tissue of the skin 



90 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Of putrid man to fumig-ate 
The stench eternal spilled by Fate. 
There was some good within thy wall. 
I've now expelled my anger all, 
And lay aside my pen of gall. 

Dear Father Fontenot, to thee 

I offer homag-e heartily. 

Whilst to the earth the good God leaves 

Thy soul to cheer the soul that grieves, 

Thy heart to sympathize with those 

Who bear misfortune's ruthless blows, 

Thy tear to mingle with the tear 

That sorrow sheds upon a bier, 

All saints have not to heaven gone. 

And love is not a worthless spawn 

Of human passion. Ah, dear man, 

I have not paid thee, never can, 

One-half the gratitude I owe, 

For at thy feet I have let flow 

The troubles of my fragile life. 

And thou hast taken all my strife. 

And borne my burdens as thy own. 

My priest ideal, the good seed sown, 

Have not brought forth the harvest ripe, 

I am afraid, of which the type 

Thy product is, and though 'tis true 

I have forgot, I'll try anew 

To walk along the narrow path 

Whose exit all the glories hath 

Of everlasting otherwhere, 

Beyond, on high, there, over there! 

Oh Viget de Jalop y Squills, 

Oh worsener of human ills, 

Of course you yet the boys survive, 



RETROSPECTIVE. 91 

Those whom you doctored when alive! 

And still in English Frenchified 

Do you the classic poets chide? 

Undoubtedly. I almost hear 

Your curling- lip evoke a sneer. 

But you were not '"half bad,'' dear sir, 

Nor on the plate a total blur. 

Indeed, perhaps a man could find, 

With glass especially designed, 

A virtue bigger than a pea 

Confined by your periphery. 

And likewise it is true indeed. 

A microscope might straining lead 

A man to see some evil thing 

In you some larger than a ling. 

So fell a fright was Prefect Schrantz 

That every student in his pants 

Did tremble like an aspen tree 

When gusty breezes frolic free. 

If Schrantz 's falcon glance swooped down 

From lofty turret, college crown. 

Wherein he spent a spying hour, 

Cross and cranky, and gruff and sour; 

Or if within the study-hall 

Like bear he scow^led from tribune tall, 

Or if upon the campus he 

Would strut like King of Tragedy. 

His mental faculties were scant. 

And what he had were slim and gaunt; 

Considered as an animal. 

Of vigor he was prodigal. 

He seemed to think Americans 

Are like the Dutch or "kids" of France, 

And prosper best in virtue's field 

When watched by spies. Unless he's steeled 

In that respect, I would advise 



92 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

That if he'd trustful shut his eyes, 

Our honor would require of us 

Obedience to rule, and thus 

That would be gained which had been lost, 

Obedience boys won't give when bossed, 

And followed by the ratlike eyes, 

The proverb sets aside for spies. 

And Pere Denis, I wonder where 

He is; a kind old man, whose prayer 

Would rise to heaven high, I know, 

No matter who implored below, 

And though the twenty-fifth in line 

On earth, the first before the shrine. 

He thought and talked and wrote in Greek, 

And for a change would Latin speak, 

But with it all was humble, meek, 

A fine example his confreres 

Might have pursued in lieu of airs. 

His body was a shrunken husk; 

For him life had become a dusk, 

When last I saw him totter down 

The field of garden truck grown brown 

With age and wilted just the same 

As he. I think I strolled beside 

Him then. Since then he may have died, 

But death for him a passport had 

To inner kingdom of the glad. 

And I remember Father Houch, 

A German good but somewhat "rouch." 

He bounced me from the class one day, 

Because I glanced another way 

Than at my book — arithmetic 

I guess — a theme that made me sick. 

It took the pleading faculty 



RETROSPECTIVE. 93 

A week to get me back. Their plea 
Was I was j^oung- and did not know 
I hurt the kind professor so. 

And Father — let me see — yes, Roux, 
As cranky as a broken shoe: 
He tried to sneer a little bit, 
But didn't make success of it. 

And there was he, the gentle Judge, 
Whose harshest word resembled fudge I 
His utterance was a sort of song. 
So sweetly flowed his speech along. 
He turned his head to every side 
With all the blushing of a bride. 
And down he cast his limpid eyes; 
Perhaps he uttered soulful sighs: 
And all his movements were so coy, 
Flirtation would have been a joy, 
If he had half a chance, I think. 
Though it were nothing but a wink. 
He taught us everything but Greek, 
Yet that was what we came to seek, 
When he the classroom bashful ruled: 
We came, but- we were badly fooled. 
He read the gospel of St. Luke, 
In Greek. It was a holy fluke. 
He fondled books of Xenophon, 
And gossiped of the moon and sun, 
And sometimes he would yield to love 
The virtue which is owned above. 
For him I have no judgment harsh, 
And as the oak, or pine or larch. 
Erects its form intent to halt 
The storm, so Judge, the rough assault 
Of noisy youth attempts to stem. 



94 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

He whispers softly unto them 
Some adage of the living- God, 
Forgetting youth is but a clod, 
And spoils the child to spare the rod. 

Another, Wakeham, mounts the stage, 

And just as usual in a rage. 

The class of English was his fort, 

From which he fired lots of snort, 

At everyone around about, 

Like gourmand suffering from the gout. 

The world was wrong, and man was wrong, 

The ceaseless burden of his song. 

"It was a lamentable case," 
He had to tell us, of disgrace; 
But of our English we were balked, 
Though sometimes English he has talked, 
While he was tearing up the air, 
And raising hades everywhere. 
Ah, here he comes, and steps within; 
The devil sure is in his grin. 
But first he opens class with prayer. 
With drooping eyes and woful air. 
As if to pray was to despair. 

"Now, gentlemen, our lesson was — " 
And then the words begin to buzz. 
Each struggles like the very deuce 
To be the first that struggles loose. 

"Now, gentlemen, our lesson was — " 
Is just as far as can or does 
Our lesson get. From that place on 
He prates of wretched students gone, 
To drunkards' or to other graves, 
And of the awful future raves. 
He had his tawdry joke, he did. 
But if he only had a lid 
To put upon the box wherein 



RETROSPECTIVE. 95 

He kept his sermons touching- sin, 

I sometimes could have stayed awake 

While Father Wakeham scored the rake. 

We built a dam to catch the flow 

Of water in the woods below. 

He was the boss of all the work, 

And wouldn't let a fellow shirk; 

So, after all, he did some good; 

He made the lake within the wood. 

Where in the winter time we sped 

To steely runners tig-htly wed; 

Where in the summertime we sailed 

Our homemade boats, and much bewailed 

Our poverty which did not let 

Us g-et a launch, or better yet, 

A real canoe to paddle through, 

The quiet waters fresh and blue 

He was a man whose end was talk, 

Ungainly, pessimistic gawk. 

There have been mankind worse than he. 

May heaven's blessing on him be I 

His nature was too grim and sour. 

And hence was small his priestly power. 

He was a man of sapience 

That bordered on omniscience. 

If one would take the sound for sense. 

I see another; oh, how tall — 

His shadow strolling on the wall. 

A doll in size, a man in brain; 

He wrote a book and will again. 

And more than any woman vain. 

Along the hall, erect and proud, 

He stamps his feet petite but loud, 

Till one would think a giant strode 

Along the clear resounding road, 

And thumped and thumped with might and main. 

He is a scholar and a thane. 



96 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

And thou, dear soul, benignant, odd. 
Whose every thought had root in God, 
Who yelled and bellowed at a youth 
For what he never did forsooth. 
And missed the snickering culprit sure 
As heaven loves the good and pure — ' 
Art really dead, dear Pere Menu? 
And can it be thy work is through? 
Above thy grave let flowers bloom. 
And fragrance filter from thy tomb. 
For where thou art there is no gloom; 
Beloved, generous priest of God^ 
Thy peace be peaceful 'neath the sod! 
Attentive shepherd, we thy sheep 
In memory thy worth shall keep; 
We know thou dost not need our prayer. 
But needy waiting souls may share; 
And thou for us canst speak a speech 
The very ear of God to reach, 
And since thy word is greater now, 
Oh pray for me, archangel thou. 
Remember that my flesh is weak. 
Yea, still as flabby, soft, and eke 
As plastic as it was, when here 
Below I loved thee in that year, 
When first I saw a painful tear 
Roll up and trace the furrows down 
That scribbled on thy visage brown. 
And has thy plain chant ceased to ronk, 
And startle all the church, dear monk. 
And every muse antagonize 
That mingled with the organ's cries? 
Ah, those who came too late to know 
Thy nature true can only go 
And beg the story from the men 
Who knew thy moving spirit then. 



RETROSPECTIVE. 97 

Guilbaud, hobblegaited, limp, 

Slow of speech and pace, without a crimp 

Of frippery; in fashion plain, 

And face: he g-abbled Greek amain. 

Deaf of an ear he never knew 

The heartless gests that frequent flew 

Athwart the class-room where he drooled 

His melancholic lectures. Ruled 

By inborn gentleness, alas, 

He thought we all would nimbly pass 

For saints beyond the steady bar 

Where seraphs like him glorious are. 

His life was small; his aims and scope 

Were large by bigness of his hope. 

In him I first began to know 

That lack of wit is want of woe; 

That being able naught to do. 

Except to wade our muck-life through, 

Does not withdraw from Heaven's path 

The creature, nor the aftermath 

Of struggling here make worth the less 

Before the Judgment Seat. Excess 

Of power may ill result. 

For men are given to exult. 

Indeed I'd glad swap Vuibert's brains. 

For Guilbaud 's chance to hear the strains 

Of ''Holy! Holy!" over there 

Where hope is dead, likewise dispair. 

Dear Father Chapuis, is it thou. 

Lopsided still and pursed of brow. 

That scuttles down the corridor 

From chapel to the pantry door, 

To ope the first for us to pray. 

To close the latter lest away 

Some hungry youth would slavering bear 

A hunk of bread his bowels to spare 



98 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Necessity to rumble, growl, 

And rid the face of gloom and scowl? 

I'll ne'er forget the dreadful day 

We hitched the rancid butter gray, 

Alert and brisk, to coffee-pot. 

And thought we saw the latter, hot, 

Start at a canter down the board 

That served for table, where we stored 

Our cups and saucers, knives and forks 

And crusts of bread ^ like stealthy storks. 

Some years have passed since then, but yet 

I long to know — you'll tell, I bet — 

Why we were all required to wash 

Our dirtied queensware in the slosh 

And slops exuded by the meal; 

Why never decent water reached 

The tools of feeding, though you preached— 

You priests Sulpician — to be clean 

Was next to Godliness unseen. 

Since Zola wrote the book, La Terre, 

I have opined the author there 

Has well portrayed the unclean class. 

The sort that love a stifling gas 

Such as were those, I have no doubt. 

That ruled that students live without 

Washed dishes, knives, and pewter toys. 

Where Sulpice guards his prayerful boys. 

Why did you feed us all on shins. 

Of cow, and vermin pestered skins, 

The while to Paca street you shipped 

The choicest cuts man ever slipped 

His gullet down? Dost think 'twas fair 

To starve the younger, having care 

To pad the stomachs tougher grown. 

Of those that wore the cap and gown? 

Why did you sit on high where all 

Could see you gormandise, and trawl 



RETROSPECTIVE. 99 

For more of what the earth gave best, 

Though we were very lavish blest 

To get the worst below, the waste 

Of farm and range, to flatter life 

To stay awhile for further strife. 

If you had sneaked away and gorged, 

'Twould not have been so bad. You forged 

Red flesh for selves, a pallid cheek 

For us, and limbs that tottered, weak; 

For selves a gross and beefy neck. 

For us, a goose-like one to break. 

And why not seek a banquet-room, 

Where outside was -a clammy gloom? 

Inside might glow a thousand lamps, 

And burnished gold, ignoring damps 

Without, and silvern vessels show 

Their whiteness where the blush wines flow. 

The chastisement of self you taught. 

You might have practised too, for aught 

We would have known; but now w^e must 

Confess your sermons dulled with rust. 

We with a shinbone down below; 

You with a reed bird soft as snow. 

Seated on high; you with red wine; 

We w^ith a coffee harsh as brine; 

We with jalop-spiced apple sauce; 

You with Uanc-manges and fruit moss; 

The list is long; lets pass it by. 

Those that hungered down below, on high 

May feast when life is ushered out; 

And those that gluttonized about 

This fretful ball of day and night 

May yell for mouthfuls, main and might. 

Where Lazarus can scorn their cry, 

With us impartial standing by. 

Perhaps the dias lofty raised. 

Where epicurean nobles praised 

LefC. 



100 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Their God, their bellies stuffed, and starved 
Us wretched, while their roasts they carved, 
May loom in view on Judgment Day, 
Derisive of the well-fed clay 
That once upon it crammed and laug-hed. 
And Bourbon old and Rhenish quaffed. 

And Frank McKenna, g-entle Frank, 

Art still intollerant of a prank, 

That you liked well before you came 

From Paris, France, demure and tame? 

And have you g-ot the same old room, 

That knows the dormitorial gloom? 

I oft recall your tip-toe through. 

When boyish clatter wakened you. 

To see what culprit you could catch, 

In crime, and him bald-headed snatch. 

'Tis strange tome Old Glory's son. 

So given to his harmless fun, 

When once he lives with Saint Sulpice, 

Condemns his antics to decease. 

There's Wakeham, Judge, yourself in chief, 

All quiet as a falling leaf. 

And I would bet a dollar now 

Before the cowl fell on their brow, 

That Wakeham, Judge, their mischief worked , 

As well as any youth that clerked. 

And though at times I may condemn 

Unpriestly petty fault in them 

Who serve the altar, say the mass. 

Absolve the sinner, help to pass 

The dying through the slender veil 

'Tween temporal and eternal pale. 

But yet forget they owe their flock 

A duty that suggests their frock — 

To give no scandal, small or great, 

By goblet full or loaded plate, 



RETROSPECTIVE. 101 

By act unkind or speech unclean, 

Or venom of a bilious spleen — 

Although I do condemn the slips, 

Injustice is not on my lips. 

I yield the godly man his prize, 

The praise of those that recognize, 

With readiness, the earthly saint, 

While preaching him who knows the law. 

But practices along the flaw, 

A sermon on the good undone 

Before the better is begun. 



102 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



RAVINGS. 

I asked her a kies ere she went; 
Alas, is it sin, only this, 

For the love that I sent, 

And the heartache within! 

And her eye flashed bright as she said: 
■'Vain wanton, away I" Was I right? 
Her bosom was cold-inlaid 
Like a frozen flower that day. 

Not a lover I spoke, but a friend, 
And she spurned me forsooth; and the yoke 
That I bear to the end 
Cankers my soul without ruth. 

Red wine, pray attend, for I'm sad; 
Come mantle the blight and f orfend ! 

In my cup I am glad. 

And I lift it up tonight. 

I lift and atone; I would laugh — 

I rather would weep — I'm alone. 
I uplift it and quaff, 
Yea, to the dregs ere I leap. 

I stand on the prow; I'm alone. 
How dismal the sky it is now, 

And how cold like a stone 

Is my heart when I sigh! 



RAVINGS. 103 



Shall I plunge and die? The stars fret 
Too, with me tonight, and the sky 

Is clad in fretted jet. 

The wan moon hides from sight. 

And I live in spite I It is queer! 

Do I live for love? Read aright, 
I pray, and hearkening hear 
No promise from above. 

Were I mad that time, she'd forgive; 

I am wildly mad, and a chime, 

From her lips, like a sieve, 
Oozes harsh: ''I am glad." 

I will live to grieve forever; 

If I did a wrong, let me weave 
A woof of woe and never 
Know aught of tender song. 

She sent me away in sorrow. 
And hates me for why? Why today 
Does she go, and tomorrow 
Shall I see her? no, not I. 

The tears that I shed, let them plead, 
Jewelled prayers to thee I Were I dead 
Would she care? Ah, indeed, 
I believe not — why for me? 

The dead do not praise woman's grace. 

I offer the store of my days. 
Only to turn thy face 
And say: " I hate no more." 



104 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



Am I weak to wail as I do? 

Are manly tears or flat or stale? 

The Christ-man, He wept too, 
And so His brothers can. 



I'm alone up here— all alone, 
Where the rumble reels on my ear, 

With groans, and hurt hopes moan 
Like a sensate thing- that feels. 

But I heed no sound as I sit 
At my window blear, and around 
Gaze blank as a statuette 
At pallid walls and drear. 

And the night is still; it is two. 

How the clock tells time! and the ill. 
Like a clamorous shrew, 
Resents both hour and clime. 

Within, ah, within, there is moan; 
There's tempest and surge; there is sin; 

And myself with a groan 

To a prayer do I urge. 

And I cry: " Forgive I" from the dark. 
And I rise and grope, for I live 

In the flesh, though I'm stark 
And cold as distracted hope. 

I would die for thee that thou live, 
Though I wandering go, or I flee, 
Like the beggars that give, 
A blessing for boon or blow. 



RAVINGS. 105 

Thoug-h I trudge on, on, through my life, 
Over moor or swamp, where light shone 

Never, or fell in strife 

On the Upas deathful, damp; 

Though I climb the height where the snow 
Lies old, and the ice glares bright 

And as cold in its glow 

As the sheen of thine eyes, 

Still in pursuit, still will you be, 
For I can't fly far from the ill 

You gave, while yet on me 

Lowers your lurid star. 

Till my lamp go out in the room, 
And I hear no call roundabout, 

And my path to the tomb 

No hand smoothes down at all ! 



Ah, better I go as I came, 
Alone like that star sinking low 

In the west, without shame, 
Bearing a love-red scar. 

On my heart that beats as before 
It beat but for thee, whom it greets 
At the open, outward door, 
Embracing its misery. 

Thou hast gone away ! Be it so, 
I wish, wishing not what I say, 
For I'm sad as the low 
Adieu that gasps from my cot. 



106 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



MAY, 1884. 

The year is passing-, changing, by; 

Its wings outspread 
Lift o'er the tide of transient sigh 

The heart's emotions merrily. 

Forgot the dead. 
What pleasure brought and what brought pain. 

The future now 
Advances, and in her purring train 
Are themes all sweet with untaught, unheard strain, 

Harbinger thou, 
O Cantatrice, that warblest near, 

On yonder tree. 
That swings thee 'neath my window clear, 
As thy soft note I lean to hear 

Contentedly. 

But wouldst thou make my heart beat high. 

Wood-urchin, friend, 
Warble "Success" into my ear, 

And so that I may learn to fly 

Spread wing, ascend. 
And I will watch thee upward go 

Into the blue. 
Where cirrhus flocks tumultuous flow, 
Like angel sheep observed from earth below. 

And thus to you. 
If I should rise above the crowd, 

I'll owe the hint. 
To seek the heights of pure- white cloud, 
And gain them when the head is bowed, 

And white as lint. 



UNA. 107 



UNA 



Thoug-h you were fain to cherish me. 

Thou lovely maid and fay, 
Yet you'd refrain because a pain 

On other heart 'twould lay. 

O let thy soul less tender be, 
Thou girl of bloomy May; 

For grief will start if you the dart 
Unthinking snatch away. 

It quivers now imbedded deep, 
Thou seedplot of the smile: 

There let it be, for thee and me 
A bond for all the while. 



108 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



THE WAGON RIDE FROM COLLEGE TO THE CARS. 



As home we speed, the bob-tail steed 

Our gladness seems to know, 
For swift his gait, his head elate, 
His eye aflame and stiff his mane. 

Yes, we are going home — 
How quick it makes the sens ate rivers flow — 
To father's grunt and gentle mother's glow. 

The aspens glance, the saplings dance 

To see that we are glad; 
The rocks around toss back our sound. 

The hollows shout, the hillocks flout. 

As we are going home. 
To make the bosoms gay that erst were sad, 
To greet the sister grown, the brother lad. 

The darkey's wife, with rapture rife. 

Runs to the rickety door; 
Her husband bows, his dog bow-wows, 
And young moaks grin, and nudge and peep. 

Because we hurry home 
To scenes that heard our prattled childish lore. 
Friends left to meet and miss who are no more. 

The birds on high are sailing by 

As we are going home; 
The lazy cow looks wistful now. 
Forgetting soon our coming boon. 

That we are going home 
To hearts that beat a parent's tender strain, 
To gaze into an eye that tells its wane. 



THE WAGON RIDE FROM COLLEGE TO THE CARS. 109 

How should the soul from its full bowl, 

The home-folks smiling- down, 
Pour out its wealth and body health, 
To cheer if woe should deal a blow, 

And smother every frown, 
That might new seams sew in the furrowed face. 
The evening mists with dawnlike radiance chase. 



110 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



UNCERTAINTY. 

I ask myself today if I have loved, 

And doubt no more the timorous answer "No!" 
I ask myself if now I love at length, 

While hurried heart- beats scurry too and fro, 
And what this waxing- and this waning strength. 

And yet I doubt th' unblenching answer "Yes!" 
And try to sound its depth by test and guess; 

Then pass it by awhile. I do not know. 

In sooth, at times I hardly believe that one 

Can tell when true-love fevers vex the brain; 
For who can set the thin dividing screen 

'Twixt snide and sterling amorous pain. 
Or bliss, whate'er it be or may have been? 

Then what this thoughtless, staring, far-away, 
Unspeculative eye, the restless stay 

And start of self that tugs as at a chain? 

Why then in turn the joy and gloom, the light 

And happy jaunty poise, the mucky chill, 
The wafture smooth, the quake, the shock, the dip. 

The rise, the fall anon, smooth wafture's thrill 
Again, the ceaseless change, the nectar sip 

With wormwood following quickly, and the laugh 
That makes a moaning ere its tinkle half 

Be heard, ere it flutter from the lip? 

I almost feel that now T love at length. 

Then why this caution to confess? Say why ! 
I do not know, or is it shame if fear? 



UNCERTAINTY. Ill 

'Tis strange anomaly. Mayhap the eye 
Hath sig-nalled not I Mayhap the cheek no clear, 

Rubescent flag hath waved without, that speaks. 
Though mute, more skillful than the tongue, ekes 

Ecstatic fancy to the rhythmic sigh. 

And must I go apart and ogle like a loon, 

Or moonstruck witling whistling from a nook, 
And list the rustling garment as she glides 

Heedlessly by me, or leer like a rook, 
Or like a silly boat upon the tides. 

Askant, and never know and fear to ask, 
Lest that the brilliant light in which I bask 

Go down, and rise no more besides. 

Will it not please my soul to limn it now — 

A memory to shine on other days — 
To sketch upon the plastic mind that face, 

Which now gives painful joy-doubt, and doth raise 
Fair hope to let it fall. Oh tender grace 

And semi-sense of happiness forthfetch 
Some talismanic, soft-eyed fay to etch 

Tomorrow's gloom and litchened bough I 

Can loss deep-understood, bring sorer woe 

Than tense suspension 'tween both fear and hope, 
Slow swinging, like the tall clock's busy pulse 

That flings the elfish moments to the slope — 
Whitherward evanishing? Search love-cults 

For answer; hazard future on a cast; 
The dice will end the doubt and trust at last, 

And bid thee dream no more, nor mope. 



112 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



TWO FLOWERS. 

A Lily and a Rose 

Dwelled in a grassy mead, 
Where humming- water goes 

Among the marshalled weed. 

In darker vesture this, 
And that in virgin robe, 

And each attended is 
By menials of the grove. 

When in the swelling bud, 
They shared a tender love. 

The Rose's tinge of blood, 
Reflected from above, 

Gave color to the cheek, 
And lit the pallid brow, 

That won the Lily meek 
The pathos and the vow. 

Nor did the beauty wan, 

When chumming with the dark, 
No rapture throw upon 

Her comrade in the park. 

And both were kissed, caressed, 
And both were fondled oft. 

And each thought each the best 
That lived beside the croft. 



TWO FLOWERS. 113 

The older still they grew, 

The warmer burned the heart, 
And neither gladness knew 

Unless it could impart. 

Up higher rose the head, 

Where hung a fondling brake; 
Their fuller mantle spread 

A full-blown flower spake. 

No ill had put between 

To solve the friendly bond, 
And love as it had been, 

Still was intent and fond. 



They whispered in the beam 
Which morning flung about, 

And told the peopled dream 
Which slumber sculptured out. 

The midday's wooing glance 

Fell on the twain alike; 
No blush could ever chance 

The one not both to strike. 

And Love like Eden's own 
Was queen of all the day. 

And Sleep came gently down 
Her scepter to display. 

Amid these blissful scenes. 
They passed the youthful hour. 

From seedlings through their teens, 
Bv sunlight nursed and shower. 



114 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

And Love like Eden's own 
Was queen of all the day, 

And Sleep came gently down 
To exercise her sw^ay. 

There fell a wondrous spell; 

But still they stood beside, 
Nor do the blushes tell 

The pulse's altered tide. 

A smile is born as then 
When meet their distant eye. 

As loathing- to profane 
The pregnant memory. 

Soft eye looked into eye 
As it was wont to be, 

And sigh re-echoed sigh 
For sake of harmony. 

A newer chord was strung 
Into each throbbing heart, 

A newer music rung 
But not the former art; 

Another finger roves 

Among the tuneful strings, 

As when the summer groves 
Catch autumn's whisperings. 

But nearer came the gloom. 
And harsher grew the song, 

While fairer looked the bloom, 
And rapter gazed the throng. 



TWO FLOWERS. 115 

A feig-ning taper burned 

Upon the rounded cheek, 
For thence the true is spurned, 

And gone the good and meek. 

They meet within the day; 

They mingle in the night; 
They smile the scowl away, 

And clothe the hate in light. 

They wish to hide the truth 

From lowly flower and leaf, 
From dandelion and, sooth, 

The daisy flower in chief. 

The bluet, golden-rod. 

The painter 's-brush and hop. 
The honeysuckle on the sod, 

The primrose in the crop, 

Polygala, holly, 

The morning-glory fresh, 
Larkspur blue a.nd jolly, 

Carnation with its mesh, 

And every plant that sways 

In garden, field or waste. 
Within the warming rays 

That drop from heaven chaste, 

No longer hesitate. 

The which to choose for queen. 
Incline their heads to fate 

And wither on the sfreen. 



116 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

And now the passers-by, 
As if they knew the death, 

Do o'er the Lily sigh 
And steal the Rose's breath. 

Where they were true to both, 
To either now untrue, 

And in their soul the sloth 
That shivers faith in two. 

No more is each indeed 
Companion in the praise. 

But either has her meed. 
And envy owns the days. 

Who lay the Lily close 
Upon the tresses brown, 

Ignore the regal Rose, 
Or stun her with a frown. 

Who wear the Rose a crown 
Upon the flaxen hair. 

They cast the Lily down 
Upon the tufted stair. 

And thus, though neither shows 
The gnawing hate by word, 

The voice of loving 's woes 
Is in the seeming heard. 

What means the studied speech, 
The praise satiric sped, 

The mien, the look? Ah, each 
Proclaims the dying dead! 



TWO FLOWERS. 117 

But once a killing- blig-ht 

Fell on the Lily's cheek, 
And drooped her head, as light 

Before the smoke and reek. 

And in the sullen gloom, 

The Rose turned long- away, 
Still in commanding bloom, 

Recalled the other day. 

The elf that rules within. 

Busy at good, if let, 
Denounced the folly, sin, 

And good example set; 

And ere the death invade, 

And Lily take away. 
Advised her, unafraid. 

To seek her where she lay. 

And fear was strong, and pride 

Resigned the worshiped plume. 
And saw with sin allied 

A dire monster loom. 

She visited the sick, 

But sense had stricken fled, 
And beat the slow heart quick, 

And hate in grief was dead. 

The Lily waked at last, 

As if a magic boon. 
Had journeyed from the past, 

And called her back at noon. 



118 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

And both were wed in thought, 
And shame the surpliced priest, 

Both sad where gladness ought 
To bless the marriage feast. 

Now joyful was the sun. 
The blight had vanished all. 

And Hope, the festal one. 
Removed the ready pall. 

So when the regent smile 
Resumed its olden swary. 

And when the tender wile 
Began again to play, 

The stately flower that gave 
The proud one's coronet, 

Forgot was as the grave 
Had won the pale coquette. 

The Lily had no soul. 
And grandeur of the Rose 

Received no graceful toll 
That gratitude bestows. 

Tne Lily soon condemned 
Her noble comrade true, 

Her heartedness contemned 
As bearing envy's hue. 

"The Rose came here," she said, 
"Because the gallants do: 
She thinks her tossy head. 
Can win my homage too." 



TWO FLOWERS. 119 

Perhaps their path divides 

That each may cheer some spot, 
Where ugliness resides 

Or beauty is forgot. 

Forsooth, where ere they are, 

Where summer warms the clifts, 
Or where the moonbeams bar 

The forest floor uplifts, 

Or where the winter chill 

Its fleecy mantle spreads, 
Or where the showers spill 

Their breath on flower beds. 

The Lily and the Rose 

Disdainful glances send. 
For beauty never knows 

Par beauty for her friend. 

And rivals will not brook 

Invasion of their sway, 
The redbreast is a rook. 

The blue-bird is a jay. 

No glory can they see 

In her who glorifies, 
Nor can another be 

A censer swung with sighs. 

One only halo burns, 

And it is round her brow; 
One only homage yearns 

With sentimental vow. 



120 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



LINES ON THE DEATH OF MAY KAVANAUGH. 

Let the lights go out in the evening, 
And the star-eyes blink no more, 
Let the moon glide off forever. 
And flock-clouds huddle o'er. 

For she went away in the evening, 
And took all her laughter away; 

She has taken no thought of our grieving, 
Or why does she stay? 

I am sad in the dusk of the evening, 

All hope in dull crepe is begirt. 
O Life, let me go whither she went! 

Death it can add no hurt. 

Must I plod thus from dawn till the evening, 

From evening till dawn come again? 
' Twere cruel to sneer at my sorrow. 
When life is dreamless pain. 



CAESAR JACKSON'S WEDDING. 121 



CAESAR JACKSON'S WEDDING. 

Duh bells is ringin in duh ol bell loff, 

Duh prechuh's waitin in duh chuch^ 
And fokes is rivin laffin loud and soff, 

Wif teef all shinin day grins so much. 

Duh pahson's specs am sot upon his fohd, 

He looks so awful wise and knowin; 
And at duh bride d'admirashun's frode; 

Duh groom he magins he's so showin. 

Wha's duh bride and wha's duh bridegroom too? 

Yuh see dat feller wid duh yallah glubs, 
'N stovepipe hat, so spruce 'n how d'ye do, 

Dat's him, 'n shoes lak Injun clubs! 

Dat niggah tinks hese debbil sho enuflf 
Bekase dat gal she's agwine tuh hab imi 

Los tuh duh wuhyll It's sartin mighty ruff 
Tuh dun get lef. May duh debbil grab im! 

"Mister Jackson, heah dese wuydsl Dus yuh accep 
Dis gala wench for wuss and bettah too?" 

"I dus." "An Liza Jane, dus yuh dis step 

Onconshers take or dus yuh know?" "I do." 

Duh marhyge is froo 'n all am agwine 
Tuh duh feas whah day's possums 'n coons: 

Ah seen em ahangin out on duh line, 

Dat Ah borrered one night frun Doctuh Gaboon's. 



122 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

'N Ah gin it tuh dat gal whahchuh sees 

Uh smilin on uhnudder cullud gemman; 
But its alius duh same wif gals lak dese, 
Yuh grease em, den day sours lak a lemon 

When yuhs dun all yuh can tuh enroll er; 

But duh white fokes says duh same. Guess its true 
Ob dem all, no mattuh bout duh cullah. 

For duh skin isn boss o' whaht yuh do. 

But dats all right; let er hab duh ol moak; 

She wants im kase he's yallah 'n Ise black; 
But Ah tel yuh whaht Ah betchuh, he ill soak 

All duh satin dat duh wench has on er back. 

'N dat aint all I betchuh; put it down; 

Ah betchuh dat he soaks er in er grin, 
Duh fustes thing he does outa town, 
'N I grees wif Mister God taint no sin. 



AN ALEXANDRIAN LOVE AFFAIR. 123 



AN ALEXANDRIAN LOVE AFFAIR. 

I'se made fuh lub; I bliebes it. Lize; 

I knows I'se boan fuh lub; 
Des see duh lub light in dese eyes, 

'N say taint so I'se talkin ub. 

An put yuh han right hyah, no, hyah. 
Feel how dat haht he kick, 

An blink as libely as a stah 
What done fell in a crick. 

Es if it done got drownded dah 
Wif teahs what lub has wep; 

An den yuh doubts me, does yuh? lah! 
Den how's yuh promise kep? 

My haht's a fly, all tangle up, 
Wif codes what lub has fro; 

An same's duh fly it buzz and ju'p. 
But duh spider's got him, sho. 

An woan yuh look on me and smile, 

A lill bit lack yuh could, 
Duh udder night fo moa'n a mile, 

Comin froo Noble's wood. 

Yuh knows it, Lize, dat I'se duh bes 

Ub all duh boys aroun; 
Den say duh wuhd; I does duh res, 

Duh tellin and duh bown. 



124 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Yuh ses duh wuhd! Come tuh dis bres 
An mahyh yo lips to mine; 

We'll lib on possum; oh, duh res, 
Duh kissin and duh sighin! 



COYOTE'S ARGUMENT. 125 



COYOTE'S ARGUMENT. 

The nasty, gaunt, the cowardly coyote 

I am called, 
For every prince or scullion a pelota, 
For, bad of birth and bastard of the fox, 

Unappalled, 
I skulk among- the pinons and the rocks, 
I rob a henroost or I eat the slain 
That rot upon the heaven-bounded plain, 

And I am false as any paradox. 

Oh, yes, I am a coward ! What of that? 

Whose to blame ? 
I'm nasty, gaunt, and flee the common cat; 
The people of the Westland do indeed— 

What a shame I — 
Compel my name to epigram "mixed-breed;" 
So, when sleep invites the miner in his camp, 
When weariness o'ertakes the saint or scamp, 

I howl for hate till vengeance runs to seed. 

I know that I am scorned, but wrong or right, 

Whafs to do? 
And who would heed a plains-dog's plea tonight, 
Though I proved injustice rank to me were done,- 

He or you? 
Because my breed to theft and filth has run— 
A thief because my life must live for man's, 
A scavenger, whom man despising scans— 

. That he survive till many a coming sun. 



126 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

When honesty of effort don't avail 

To feed me, 
Then I sneak and steal, for if I should fail. 
Humankind would cease in manner gross and vile — 

Let me be. 
Let me argue best I can for a while — 
There is no love for living in my heart. 
But I've a duty to perform on my part. 

Appointed me by Him that knows not guile. 

I am the only master scavenger 

Of the plains; 
Crows and vultures my assistants, I aver; 
Before the shrewd bacillus builds its nest, 

I take pains 
Upon its stuff to dine, excited lest 
Contagion walk the viewless aisles of air, 
Infection strike at mankind from its lair, 

And microbes do slow murder without rest. 

I have no praise or glory for reward — 

Only taunt — 
Though I've made the prairie wholesome, man, my 

lord, 
At sacrifice of honor, worth and fame; 

Looks askant 
For him who serves the world, through hate and 

blame. 
With loyalty. My father. Fox, is proud. 
Holds up his head , for robbing is allowed 

To him whose line is long, and brings no 
shame. 

I ask a verdict for my race maligned, 

Upon proof; 
There's malice in the slanderer's opened mind: 



COYOTE'S ARGUMENT. 12"; 

He has not told the public to befriend , 

For behoof, 
Nor has he known the class his tales offend, 
Nor all the labor of their workaday, 
Nor all the sorrow of their cheerless way, 

Nor that they are a means unto an end. 



128 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



TO THE PRAIRIE DOG. 

Roly-poly animal, 

Clad in garb of clay, 

I will, if I may. 
At your burrowed mansion call. 
And be at home, I pray. 

Frisking-, flirting-, rounded thing-, 
Whence does come your fear? 
There's no foeman here; 

I a friendly greeting- bring. 

And promises of cheer. 

On your yellow prairie far. 
With your hopping breed. 
What a life you lead! 
All about no waters are. 
And dried-up roots for feed. 

Ochred pup, why do you runV 
Can't I be your friendV 
Standing there on end. 

Do you peep around in fun. 

Or watchful to defend? 

If you snappy have to bark, 
Bark a welcome warm; 
I'll not do you harm; 

Come and play within the park, 

And lay aside alarm. 



TO THE PRAIRIE DOG. 12i> 

Madam, I have met your race 

Many times before, 

And I find, the war 
I should, dread, the most to face 
Is woman's love for gore. 

Why, I've wondered oft and oft: 

We're not fit to hunt; 

We are harsh and stunt; 
We are lowly, not aloft: 
Yet leave us free you wont. 

God has taug-ht us dread of you, 
And He knoweth why 
Better far than I. 
We obey our instinct true. 
And suffer less therebv. 



130 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



THE DRILL OF THE COWBOY ROUGH RIDER. 

Hep, hep, hay foot, straw foot, hay foot, straw foot! 
Hep! hep!— Holy Moses! both are hay feet! 
*'Come along", boys, it's as easy as loot, 
And a sow could learn or a guinea keat!" 

Hep, hep,— "You're off there, Jack, but try again, 
And don't limp so like a hobbled pony! 
Now, boys, forget you are plainsmen, cowmen. 
And let one foot with the other be crony!" 

*'But it's no use. Cap, for I can't catch on, 
And my hoofs are caught in a diamond hitch; 
Stampede I must, or my gumption is gone — 
And how in the devil I cross that ditch?" 

"If you let me off, Captain, I'll toss a cow. 
Or skin a calf or brand a maverick, 
, Or rope a nigger, or I'll show you how. 

But I can't go 'hep' not a gol-darned lick." 

"Or put me to cookin or choppin wood, 
Or washin the dishes or bustin 'bronks.' " 
Jack plead with the Captain as best he could, 
For he hated 'heps' as he hated skunks. 

And the officer smart from Cruces old. 
Concluded he couldn't drill up his squad. 
So he raked them through like a judge or scold, 
Obversely commending their souls to God. 



THE DRILL OF THE COWBOY ROUGH RIDER. 131 

On the following- day, down a company street, 
Jack Shannon stepped jaunty beside a bear; 
The Captain gazed blank, and amazed, and 'beat.' 
Atid yelled at the man, "Whatchuh doing thereV" 

But Jack was half-corned and he knew no bound, 
Save the law^s of the plains as free as he, 
And he said: "Hi, Pall, at last I have found 
That there's something I can keep step with, seel" 



132 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



WHAT BOOTS IT TO WEEP? 

Others may weep that g-rief has come: 
In me it dries the spring of tears; 
But in the passage on of years, 

Who most will feel the vacant home? 

Or I or they — which will it be 
That may lament with utmost soul 
The stinging pang, the weight of dole, 

By each imposed and most by me? 

'Tis hence the strongest blow is drawn 
For me and those that sinned in shame 
'Gainst her for whom Fates' deadly aim 

Had fiendish hate — her that is gone. 

When night hath hung about the world 
Its sable pall, o'er mimic death, 
When all seem dead, save only breath 

That frets the thick flag, wide unfurled, 

Then, in the gloomy dark of night. 
Lit by a lamp's lone flicker nigh, 
I hold dull converse in a sigh. 

With my sad heart upon its blight. 

I strive with all my mystic might. 

With thoughts of God, of sin and hell. 
And reason ill or reason well 

To prove that I was yet aright; 



WHAT BOOTS IT TO WEEPV 13:^ 

To prove that all I did was yet 

Fulfilment of a need express, 

Fulfilment of a wish to bless 
By seeming wrong-; and still I fret 

And vex my mind that there was right 
Commingled with the wrong I felt 
Lay in my deeds, and e'er would pelt 

My every thought with taunt by night. 

And then to prayer I took my soul, 

And on my knees upheld it high, 

High as I can when most I try. 
Unto the Lord who knew my dole. 

I begged Him in the glowering time, 
Where shapes stood out at every turn 
Affrighting me till that I burn, 

As venomed by some mental chyme. 

I begged that He by sign would tell 

If that lorn soul were yet at rest, 

Or buried in the marl unblest. 
Or waiting till all would be well. 

And this end sought, this begging made, 
I took it back as swift as fain, 
For what was that which I could gain? 

She loved in light, or writhed in shade. 

If one 'twas all that she could need. 

If other, all was woe, was woe. 

Woe unto her, and I to know I 
'Twould sear mv life — and what the meed? 



134 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

And then I cried, "Oh, God! let not 
The knowledge asked come near to me! 
I am content that it shall be 

Locked up forever from my lot: 

"Or yet until the Ang-el's call 

Shall bid me to a place more blest — 
If such shall be my God's behest — 
And then I would not blench from all." 

My moaning thus might mean, O Lord, 
I had not any trust in Thee: 
Thy goodness known was doubt to me. 

And all Thy promise like a sword. 

I mixed no sweetness in my cup, 
I mixed no hoping with dispair. 
But like a mind grown weak with wear, 

I looked for lees and drank them up. 

While thus my grief had horrid sway, 
I deemed no more Thy bond was good; 
I deemed Thy promise backed in blood 

A whimsey of bedarkened day. 

But now that quiet comes again, 
As sleeps the silence in the wild, 
I look and see my God hath smiled; 

No more I'll hold His word in vain. 

Ah, Peace, how blessed is thy guise, 
How tripping as a maid you seem, 
And pressing balm from every beam 

That breaks upon light- weary eyes. 



WHAT BOOTS IT TO WEEP? 185 

I hear soft music in thy tread: 
I scent perfuming in thy word, 
And g-ather sounds of singing heard, 

As down the slope thy coming led. 

Ah, ease of soul and rest of thought! 

Ah, beauty of recovered calm I 

How like a cure-distilling balm 
Thou drippest on the woe I sought. 

Ne'er let me once again repine; 
Ne'er let me weep, nor moan, nor wail 
Raise up the bark's bedraggled sail, 

No more to moor till Thou design. 

Out on the ocean's blissful breast- 
That ocean where the sense is soothed — 
As on it scuds in joy ensmoothed, 

Drive on the new-built ship to rest. 

It can not be — what once I thought; 

There is no grief I know for her, 

No sorrows and no chidings stir. 
For she has peace that God has wrought. 

Upon His bosom now she lies. 

Safe from the taunting world afar. 
Bright as a new-found, new-set star 

Enkindled by an angel's eyes. 

She was too good to cast away, 
Too kindly, sad and lorn I know, 
And now is plucked from Mercy's bough, 

That held for her since pristine day. 



136 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Let prayer rise up in song and speech, 
Thankful to God for all his ruth; 
He is a God to them, forsooth. 

Who once have trusted, trusting each. 

When hopes that fail bedim each day. 
Think of the newer angel then: 
Ask that she calm thy griefs again. 

When griefs break in and try to stay. 

I feel that I am better now, 
That better things engird my path, 
That gone the troublous trail of wrath, 

And come a joy that's only Thou. 



LET ME DREAM. 



13" 



LET ME DREAM. 

Let me dream that— let me dream: 

Joy is in th' appearing: 
What could glad me, did I deem 

She were true— with fearing? 
And the dream's a healing balm, 

On the lesion soft and calm: 
Let the fancy's fruitful beam 

Yield new life amidst the searing. 

Upon the valley and the vale, 

Brown with autumn's dying, 
Wakes from sleep a violet glad. 

Fragrant where all else is sad. 
Quell in me the dolorous sighing: 

Lift away the burden trying: 
I am growing sick and pale 

If thou smile 'twill all avail. 



138 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



AFTERMATH. 

There is no moon tonight, and like the sky 

I too am sad; 
Only the chippering- crickets of the trees are glad: 
The twinkling- stars are in the veiling welkin shy, 
Coy like my heart that flutters to my sigh, 

So questioningly lone, 
So dubious, I ask it in the stillness, Why? 
Or if a maiden's songful love hath lost its tone. 
Or if her look of love bespoke a last good-bye, 
As vocal as the trembling sound that makes a moan. 

Hath sorrow come upon me now tonight, at last 

To weigh me down? 
Ah, me, I fear some wretch of ill hath wrought a frown 
Upon her mobile soul, with love so vast, 
That there I rested lost, a solitary cast 

Upon immensity. 
Where'er my eye might fall, or on the burnished past, 
Or to the fore only her love I saw for me, 
And now God knows if hope is bound unto ths mast 
That distant fades away! To me, abandoned, misery I 

Ah, Ruth, thou perfect child of Love, forgive, 

Or else I die; 
With tears that flood my drooping, furtive eye, 
I beg thee hear my prayer, its groans, and let me live; 
Untie thy smiles once more and all their cheer, and give 
A kindled glance, thy touch's grace, nor more bereave 

A sinner for his sin. 
Do I not weep in my lorn room alone? 
Thy picture smiled upon me as I entered in; 



AFTERMATH. 189 

Wilt thou do less indeed because I lost my way 
Among the weeds of passion like virtue gone astray? 

Ah, Ruth, I bless thee I bid me hopeful rise up yet. 
And say: "I love, 
'"I could not else forgive: for thee have gone above 
•'.My sighs: my dream of thee tonight no carking fret 
'"Dismayed, no dixenings of gloom: no trail of jet 

"Besmirched their pleasant guise: 
'•T love thee still as then, and love must love beget; 
"What canst thou see but it within these lustrous eyes, 
'•Which you have said to me were thine; thy grief upset 
"The past forget; live but for me; let joy arise." 

Yet, dear, I know my promise made, perhaps in vain 

I'll strive to keep; 
Dost know the fears that flock within like huddled sheep? 
I will to do aright, but every thought is pain. 
Lest in the wilderness of wish the fever come again. 

So foolish, feeble I, — 
Lest I should want to roam, forsake the guardian chain. 
And wander off, leaving the warm and quiet fold. 
To nibble in another field, content and fain. 
As men are led by wanton greed for fickle gold. 

Then there were woe for me and hopelessness indeed, 

Forevermore; 
Forgot of her, her gentle voice denied, all o'er 
The w^old in vain I'd bleat for her, or inward bleed. 
To dream no more beside her cheek gambolling I feed, 

Or sip the dew upon her lip; 
No shepherd now, no guide, no soft command to heed. 
But in my vivid imagery of her to dip 
My troubled soul to her, and follow where I read 
Upon ths scriptive atmosphere that olden slip: 
"Thou art my perfect creed I" 



140 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



TO BESSIE. 

Bessie, in the depths of night, 
When darkling thoughts enfold me like a storm, 

I lie awake, and thou the light, 
That breaks upon the distance, kind and warm, 

A gentle soothing in affright, 

To force the spectres from my sight. 

And yet what makes this depth of gloom? 
Two months ago I knew no waking sore and mad. 

'Twas then we met, delightful bloom: 
I swore to know the better tho' result be sad. 

And in my heart to fill a room, 

Tho' failure bring me hideous doom. 

I knew and loved. Swift time goes on. 
Fair happiness entwines me like a garland's clasp, 

I fear no dearth — no hate I con. 
But gladness like a strong man strenuous grasp, 

Lead thou no baleful star above, 

But let me look, sweet one, and love. 

Then earth will be a garden plot. 
With bursting bourgeons brilliant flung around. 

And thou the rose-bud of the spot, 
And I the gladdened lingerer o'er thee bound, 

Where sunlight like a lover leans, 

Jeahjus and hot and overweens. 



ST. MATTHEWS" INSTITUTE— SECOND ANNIVERSARY. 141 



ST. MATTHEWS' INSTITUTE- 
SECOND ANNIVERSARY. 

Two years have gone unto the ambient past, 

Like errant children to a mother's arm, 

Though sinful, bearing- to that goal at last 

Some good thing earned amid the world's alarm — 

Or like two hunter boys, superbly bold, 

Who sought their quarry on the jagged clift. 

Amid the sylvan feuds which shades enfold, 

And homeward brought their trophies as a gift. 

They brought the honest wealth of deeds well done- 

And earthly coffers tarnish not their sheen — 

High o'er that dome where wheels the flagrant sun, 

And angels guard, till stewardship has been. 

What better heritage has man to leave 

This side the portal of the open grave. 

Than memories whose graphic, pictured weave 

Recounts the victory of the Christian brave. 

The lonely, hid and pensive rural saint. 

Who treads his rutty way with aching feet, 

Performs for God an exploit, pure, untaint. 

As he who succors on the fevered street. 

And though no blazonry, no trumpets' blare, 

Have preached thy virtues to a wondering throng, 

Good Christian guild, a watcher yet was there, 

Who smiled to see thee strive for good along. 

Thou thoughtst not then upon this gladdening truth, 

But in the time to come that thou shalt be, 

Remember it, and, like a soul, forsooth. 

Freed from its chains, work on unceasingly. 



142 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



WHEN 'TEDDY" SET UP THE WINE. 

The "Rough Riders" are we all, yes, we are; 
We have traveled from our round-ups very far; 
We have met the brag-g-ing- don in his zone. 
And the countries that he owned now we own. 

And though our stomachs ached for a feeding, 
Yet we followed and we fought without heeding 
That the soldier needs his grub just as handy 
As the Gen'ral does his rare-bit and his brandy. 

We crawled on our bellies through the jungle, 
Not a bobble did we make, nor a bungle; 
We slept with bacilli in the trenches; 
We wallowed in a wilderness of stenches. 

Now the microbe is at war with our bodies. 
For our quack gave us curses 'stead of toddies; 
We have raised the flag of Spain in our faces, 
With its saffron hue and many worse disgraces. 

Though we went to tear the yellow rag away. 
Yet it seems as if we've got it here to stay: 
And when "Teddy" sent us wine like a man, 
Down the foreign doctor's gullet smooth it ran. 

And we didn't get a little bit of it. 
Not enough to make a tear drop did we "git," 
For the doctor had a thirst like any leech, 
That required all the little share of each. 



WHEN "TEDDY" SET UP THE WINE. 143 

Just "Roug-h Riders" were we all from the west, 
Fit for treating- like a burro at the best, 
Without drugs, and g-rub and grog and tobac. 
Hence the bosoms of our "breeches" are so slack. 

Hence the color from our cheek away has fled: 
Hence the many pounds of fatness we have shed: 
But we've locked our mouths for shame, just for shame, 
Lest, complaining-, we befoul the Nation's name. 

Would we fight that fight again? Yes, we would: 
We would thrash the haughty Spaniard just as good: 
For we did not fight for fame nor for gain, 
But we fought for Uncle Sam against Spain. 

Ruff Ryder. 



144 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



CUBA LIBRE. 

For what are we warring-, I wonder, 

For glory, dominion or pity? 
Has humanity led us to blunder? 

Ask our men under Roosevelt, the Gritty, 
At the drawbridg-e of Spain's dying city. 

There we see them, all stripped to the buff, 
In torrid sun sweltering: there, 

At labors too sore and too rough 
For patriots like Cuba's. I swear 

It makes the eyes passionate stare; 

It makes the blood faint from the face, 
The anger rise up in the throat. 

To know that we strive for a race. 
That measures the first thrilling note 

Of Freedom like squeal of a shoat. 

We feed them, they tell me, and spill, 
Like water, the blood of our youth. 

In the thick-set copse, with a will 
To yield them boon of love and ruth. 

And blessed peace and faithful truth. 

And what do they? There see them all 
Outstretched beneath sheltering thatch, 

And just beyond in brush they fall. 
Our soldiers that no clime can match, 

At whom the bloated death-imps snatch. 



CUBA LIBRE. 145 

We feed the beg-g-ars, die for them. 

If we ask for our dead a "lift," 
They snarl and make us an apothegm; 

Their jninche burns; its smoke is whitft, 
And over us all its stink will drift. 

'Warriors, not workmen, we," they say, 
Withold their sun-browned brawny hand; 

And men who fought the livelong- day 
Must toil all night with faithless sand, 

That sloth may thrive throughout the land. 

Shall we yield their garden to sloth, 
Destroy their lords that drones have ease, 

And rot like sheep for a frantic oath'? 
Away with such visions as these! 

They are of honor but the lees. 



10 



146 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



THE MAJOR. 



Speak softly, boys, step easy; 

And, if you can, hide out; 
Stop your breathing if you're wheezy, 

For the Major is about. 

There down the street he's coming; 

Don't you hear his martial tread, 
Where the drummer boy is drumming 

And the flag floats overhead? 

That's the Major looking torrid. 
But you dasent say a word, 

For the Major's temper's horrid. 
And his wrath is quickly stirred. 

And if you fail to s'lute him, 
Though you work a mile away. 

Sell your thumbs for he'll pollute 'em, 
He'll extend 'em for the day. 

For he'll string you to a rafter. 
As he treated Sergeant Brown, 

And the Major split with laughter. 
Till they let the sergeant down. 

And if you fall asleep. 

In the middle of the day, 
'Cause the chills and fevers creep 

Through your body in a play, 



THE MAJOR. 147 

If the Major passes near, 

And you don't get up to s'lute, 
He will catch you in the rear 

With the toe-end of his boot. 

You're a new recruit, I know it, 

And that's the reason why, 
I tell yoa how to go it. 

When the Major passes by. 

I've heard tell your father's learned, 

And you are rich and true, 
Or, I tell you, Satan burn it, 

He would rub it into you. 

If you doubt me what I say. 

Ask McGinnis, Brito, Murray, 
Goodrich, Bigby, what a way 

This bold Major made them scurry. 

Here's the Major I doff your cap! 

Crawl upon your hands and knees I 
Bring your hand up that way, slap! 

Or he'll trice you "fore you sneeze. 

—Ruff Ryder. 



148 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



JURORS INSURGENT. 

These verses refer to an incident that occurred near the close of the 
term of court held at Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, December 1897, just be- 
fore the jury withdrew to consider a murder case. 

The court was full of people, 
And they thoughtful sat around, 

While the bell within the steeple 
Hammered out the midnight sound . 

Not a word had yet been spoken, 

Not a murmer fluttered out, 
Not a whisper nor a token, 

To explain what was about. 

Till the jurors onward surging 
Caught the judge's steady eye, 

As if the menace urging. 
They would something do or die. 

What means this strange commotion. 
This gathering and this blare? 

What means this dull explosion, 
And the shaking hands in air? 

There the sheriff he stood quiet. 

With a meek and holy face. 
Looking lost amidst the riot, 

And exactly out of place. 

And the bailiffs seeming smitten 

With a paralytic stroke. 
Emulate a woolen kitten. 

And the steadfastness of oak, 



JURORS INSURGENT. 149 

Looking- round in helpless fashion, 
From the bench to box and back, 

Till the Judge got red with passion, 
When he hit his desk a whack. 

Then up rose slim Francisco, 

A juror sleek and true. 
From a village called Atrisco, 

Which the Chama paddles through. 

There was splendor in his glances. 

And a rumble in his voice. 
Like the sound when river dances 

Where the rapids toss and poise. 

"If Your Honor please." he muttered, 
For a month this court has wrought, 
But the jury have not uttered 
Half a word of what they thought. 

"But patience, like the river. 
Has its tidal ebb and flow. 
And like the Indian's quiver. 
Has its little bunch of woe. 

"It long suffers like the worm. 
Every spitefulness and spurn. 
But it still reserves a squirm 
And the right at last to turn. 

"Then give us beds, we ask you, 
Where the itchy buglets a'int, 
And we'll resign our martial hue 
And dissipate our paint. 



150 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

"If this county's kingly reach 
Can not yield us place to rest, 
Let us slumber 'neath the screech 
Of the owlet in its nest, 

" Where the g-rieving- pine trees swing 
Let us borrow clean repose. 
Where the sylvan minstrels sing, 
And the chatting Chama goes, 

"And there make down our couches, 
Like the dames of long ago. 
And we'll all forget our 'ouches' 
And the mites that smite us so. 

"Yet another plaint we make you: 
There are twelve of us you see. 
Still one towel is all that grew 
On the court-house towel tree. 

"We have used it and abused it 
Till its face is blue and black. 
And where the bailiffs used it 
There are tunnels in its back. 

"Entomologists inform us 
That we suffer greater blow 
From Capitis Pediculus, 
As perhaps you also know. 

" And we have no bowl or basin, 
So we imitate the cat. 
And we daily lave our face in 
Our own spittle— think of that!" 



JURORS INSURGENT. 151 

But His Honor's scow] was torrid, 

As he took a pinch of snuff, 
And his countenance g*ot florid, 

And his pleasant voice g-ot g-ruff: 

'Well, I can't assist you any, 

For your county board's a fool; 
It would make a first-class granny, 

Or charwoman round a school. 

"But it hasn't got the gumption 

To provide a decent court. 

And its glory is presumption, 

And its dignity a snort." 



152 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



LAMENTATION. 

Hushed is her voice: no more I hear 

It rise and fall where'er I be: 
The smile, the laughter and the tear, 

For others gone — but not for me. 

And though they take away the form 
Whereon those fevers wrought their spell, 

Here memory will keep them warm, 
And save them all forever well. 

They can not take the skill from me 
To paint the past as it has been, 

Unless the mind grow false and flee. 
Purloining all that I have seen. 

Keep her, Oh God I keep Thou the child, 
And I will come and be with her I 

Heed not my plainings; they are wild 
Balsam, and hyssop wild, and myhrr. 



TO CHARLES W. DUDROW. 153 

TO CHARLES W. DUDROW. 

Santa Fe, N. M., October 14, 1899. 

My Bear Mr. Budrow: 

I send you herewith 
My order on bank for six-sixty, 
To settle in full (and this is no myth) 
That fellow's account which did fix me. 

We have all had misfortunes, responding- for friends. 

Because of their promises broken, 

But here, I do swear it, my good-nature ends. 

For friends will be false to the words they have spoken. 

And those who are "easy" to others' appeals, 
Have often the street to cross over, 
When Rice or "Repeater" tiptoeingly steals 
Around with the bill like a rover. 

When next with my signature cometh a "guy" 
To purchase your wares on my credit, 
Remember my vow- word, that never snail I 
"Pay up;" so, the copy pray edit. 

Return me receipt as a forceful reminder 
Of losses men suffer who pity; 
Let others be softer and "easier'.' and kinder. 
And believe me, 

Yours truly, 

A. B. 



154 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



EPIGRAMS. 



I lead the social band, 

Because I've had a past; 
The ex of vice may stand 

At front from first to last, 
By virtue of a record that was fast. 



What frills the little world puts on, 
Thougfh Death the frills will l-ater don! 



The doctor admits no knowledge but his'n: 
The lawyer shakes the rival's hand he hates. 
It would the theologian dizzen 
To tell which practice up among the Fates — 
The open loathing, or the hidden sneer — 
Will be preferred when Judgment Day is here. 



When Chance exalts a pigmy to a throne, 
The humdrum crowd receives a mighty mind, 
Where just before was puny wit confined, 
As heathens see a god in clay or stone. 



O, Woman's beauty, 

Thou art often snide. 
Like gold by fakirs hawked the street beside, 



EPIGRAMS. 155 

Or smeary booty, 
From a sacred jar 
Upon a shelf, for pimple, blotch and scar! 



The oath of office is a fetich old 

That fools adore 
Until their confidence is bought and sold 

Their face before. 
If judges wish the righteous claim to balk, 

For private gain. 
Herein, like feudal lords, these vow-words stalk, 

Correctly vain; 
If soul official entertains a doubt, 

Because it would, 
Like villeins base official oaths go out. 

As if they should. 



TRANSLATIONS. 



LOVE'S FRAILTY. 159 



LOVE'S FRAILTY. 

While Urban's useless crystal tears debouch, 

And vainly drips his ruddy blood for love, 
His Lucy for a hundred, loyal dove, 

Has bargained to some Naib half her couch. 
Let Virtue for her profit learn that pouch, 

Thrown open wide, of wealthy pelican. 
Is worth far more to Love, a merchant, than 

The poor heart's openness, for which I vouch. 

— From the Spanish of Francisco de Quevedo. 



160 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



THE FIRST-BLOWN FLOWER. 

Oh, Lisi, this, the first-blown springtime flore. 
That has confided in the leaves and hues, 
Of late beg-ot by warmth and morning dews, 
And risked her honor on the river's shore I 

It is of Spring, this bloom I ponder o'er. 
And all the sunny tints of selves sent news 
By it, the first-fruits of the floral. Use I 
It is the spirit's cult for thee, and more. 

'Tis born a brief existence to consume; 
Its years are only hours. A little while 
About its birth and death brings joy and gloom. 

Upon thy tresses let it bide and smile. 
The favorite of the year. It draws no doom. 
An endless morn to it on th' other isle! 

— From the Spanish of Francisco de Quevedo. 



NIGHTINGALE. 161 



NIGHTINGALE. 

Vocal flower, flying flower, 

Whistle with wings and painted voice, 
Lyric in plumes that bids rejoice, 

Songful nosegay on the bower: 

Tell me, atom whence thy power. 
Swung in air, thou flowery tune, 
Beauteous, sweet beneath the lune, 

And total sum of sweet and fair, 
To capture music and the moon? 

— From the Spanish of Francisco de Quevedo. 



11 



162 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



A POET'S EPITAPH. 

Beneath this stone a worthless christian lies; 

( A writer doubtless otherwise. ) 
Not that he was misfortune's favored "cuss;" 

( Some gentleman he was; ) 
But not that wealth he had and mettle too 

(Undoubtedly a Jew.) 
Because he was a thiefV it is not so; 

He had to be that which he was I know. 
Not that he was less prudent far than "gabby:" 

A gentleman he was though somewhat "shabby. 
Not merely poet was this ample man, 

For in him all these things together ran. 

— From the Spanish of Francisco de Quevedo. 



MOSQUITO. 163 



MOSQUITO. 

Devil bewing-ed or noise with wings, 
Queer, weaponed mite, or witchlike bird. 

Wing-y needle not seen but heard, 
That buzzing lets the blood from things, 
Gnat or flea that g-rumbles and sings, 

Shrill horn and chinch and trumpeter: 

Barbarous fly, I dare you stir I 
You come to stab me, rank outsider. 

The same as comes the poisoned spider, 
Thoug-h not my husband, scrubby sir! 
— From the Spanish of Francisco de Quevedo. 



164 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



AT THE TOMB OF THE DUKE DE LERMA, ROMAN 
CARDINAL. 



These were pillars which now you see are bones, 

The which when living- propped the Spanish State. 
Their generous soul drove on their country's fate 

To mastery of its multipeopled zones. 
It bore the troublous weight a two-world owns, 

That which you look upon as ashes cold. 
And fortunate events by wit unrolled 

Illumed the brain which now this hole disowns. 
To Philip Third he was a servant true, 

And yet disgraced, unreconciled ne died. 
Because one fault the King unhaply knew\ 

Though luck forsook, love lingered by his side. 
Greater in death he was, beneath the yew, 

Than living. Lerma, this to thee abide! 

— From the Spanish of Francisco de Quevedo. 



FREDERICK, BROTHER OF THE MARQUIS ESPINOLA. 1(55 



FREDERICK, BROTHER OF THE MARQUIS ESPINOLA. 

Here softly rest, Oh solemn passer nig-h, 
Beneath this frozen marble monmnent, 
The bones of Mars, in powdered ashes blent, 
That always led where Victory's flag was hig-h. 

Hold! on them trample not I nor pass them by, 
For that would be profaning', breme and shent. 
The trophies, not of Death, but Fate's that went. 
And conquered Fame to sing them to the sky. 

The crafty thunderbolt of horrid war 
Doth emulate the hasty hand of Might, 
And shuts up Frederick in this stony bar. 
Alas! 'tis Death in leaden mask bedightl 

On sea nor land nor death could fatal mar 
At all without thy sword in thy good right. 

—From the Spanish of Francisco de Quevedo. 



166 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



LA VIRTUD PERDIDA. 

I was fair one time in the gladsome mead. 

Most tropical-beaming of splendid flowers; 
All eyes unto me flung loving's lush dowers, 

Till, palsied, apostate, I bartered my creed. 

How bitter the day when listless I hearkened 
Lacivious, coaxing and wheedling swain. 

And for joys that were fleeting, and sordid, and vain, 
Forever my brilliance and glory I darkened. 

'Mongst daisies and dahlias, the cornbloom and rose, 
I swung where the garden sprites tender were dreaming, 

Till kissing, caressing, coy fondling and seeming 
Deceived, and I fell where the dandelion grows. 

Now memory derides me — sad emblem and token 
Of blush and resplendence and gladness I knew! 

The flower-folk beguiled, the believing and true. 
Lapse from all pulchritude, ban that was spoken! 

To you, garden subjects, warm bedplot farewell! 

My regnance is vanished, my diadem wilted; 
The dews that bediamonded, zephyrs that lilted 

Their love songs, disown me, within my own dell. 

— From the Spanish of Larkin G. Read. 



THE EMIGRANT MOUNTAINEER. 167 



THE EMIGRANT MOUNTAINEER. 

How kindly memory comes at morn 
And points the spot where I was born! 
Were those not, sister, gladsome days 

Away beyond the sea? 
Oh I dearest Land, through sheen and haze, 

Thou ever Love to me I 

Do you remember mother dear. 
Singing" to us so low and clear 
As she caught us close against her breast 

In the failing light? 
And how her w^hite hair doubly blest 

We kissed for last good night? 

Do you remember, sister, yet 

The cottage, and the brook that set 

Caresses at its feet, the high, 

Old, dingy Moorish tower. 
The bell that rang when dawn was nigh. 

And evening in the bower? 

Remember yet the quiet lake. 
Where the swallow skimmed, a flake 
Of life, the rushes Zephyr bent. 

As he sped, by a touch. 
The sun that set and shimmering sent 
Its last ray o'er the hutch? 

Do you remember her, (sweet girl,) 
Fair ensign on the life I furl? 



168 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

As on the heights we culled alone 

The swinging- mountain flower, 

She laid her cheek against my own 
Forgetful of the hour. 

Oh I give me back my Helen now, 
The craggy glen, the oaken bough I 
It tries me sorely, day by day. 

This deathless memory^ 
And, till shall end my wandering way, 

Her vision walks with me. 

— From the French of Chateaubriand, 



UNHOLY LOVE. 169 



UNHOLY LOVE. 

How often hast thou said to me in happy hour. 
When my brow was sudden wrought by etching care, 
"Upon thy lip why does that dread smile lower. 
And in thine eyes why tears that glare? " 

For why? because my heart surrounded by delight, 
But constantly beset by jealous memory, 
Cold in present fortune, seeks some penal blight 
In past and also time to be. 

Even in thy kisses find I pain, excelling pain: 
With love thou overloadst me, love which, I opine, 
At the first time glided in thy purple vein 
To other kiss and touch than mine. 

Vainly hast thou made me drunk with passion's fire I 
Many sad tomorrows I would give for glad today I 
Those panting charms thou gavest at my desire, 
Ah, others knew but yesterday. 

Though mad with jealous rage, for thee I cannot hold 
The graceless prize of those that keep no faith of soul: 
A word said at the altar made thee wife, I'm told, 
And saves thee from the scornful role. 

That word has sold thee to his dull caresses. 
And love should never get nor give them any more: 
And hence a husband's rights should guide all tender- 
nesses. 
Thv kisses are his riirhtful store I 



170 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Unhappy wretch am I upon the world thrown down, 
A hostage like that neither knows nor loves its laws; 
Poor me, I do not know, in sorrow sere and brown, 
To bear unvenged love's tearing claws. 

Unhappy! why? because a voice not sprung from earth 
To me has said: " Thy future fate requires his doom," 
And in that voice I've understood the mystic girth 
Of murder and the scaffold's gloom. 

Then come. Angelic Wrong, whose voice invites me now! 
A moment since if I had seen thee round about. 
To shed his blood I could have yielded life, I vow, 
Indeed my soul, had I no doubt. 

— From the French of Alexander Dumas. 



WHAT IS LIFE? 171 



WHAT IS LIFE? 



In my heart I have muttered, "Oh I what is life?" 
I will perish like those that passed ahead, 

As the lamb that goes where the ewe has led, 
And vie with fools in foolishness and strife. 

On the deep we search for the silly pelf, 

And the waves gulp down both us and hope: 

Another creeps upward the famal slope, 
Where staggering genius is drunk of self. 

My passions unloosed weaving crafty-spun guile, 

I rear a lofty web and mount to fall; 
Delightedly caught in nets finest of all, 

I read out my fate in a woman's smile. 

The lazy lie down sleeping dirty, unfed: 
The husbandman follows the harrow that tills; 

The sage reads and thinks; the guard strikes and kills; 
The mendicant whines by the road for bread. 

Whither do they go? They go where the leaf. 
Which the storm-wind drives before it, goes, 

To wither away, poor lives that time sows. 
Gathering when the crop is bound in sheaf. 

With Time they wrestled; Time has won the fall. 

As the wave sucks in the rack on the shore, 
I've seen it drink their shades that ran before; 

They're born; they're dead. Lord, have they lived atall". 

— From the French. 



172 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



ALL SOULS' DAY. 

I went along' a mossy waj'; 
On the night of the dead it was. 
The winds are mute or barely buzz; 
And the bell sounds out and I stay— 
I stop, for I think it is^ 
Below in a turn of the lane — 
A voice I hear — I hear it plain 
Softly praying De ProfumJis. 

' What voice?" I ask, and tremble there, 
And over the fallow fields I peer, 
But nothing- I see, and still I fear, 
And stand on the road which I fare. 
As no one comes I musing- g'o; 
My heart is chilled and my cheek is wan, 
And my lips of themselves go on 
With the verse that follows, slow. 

I cease; the voice takes up the prayer 
Where I left it off at the end; 
And then I see a stranger wend. 
An unknown traveler there. 
With a sound I can't at all essay. 
Her voice sepulchral closed the verse, 
And I the following- verse rehearse, 
To the end of the psalm of the day. 

And over beyond the leafy screen 

I saw arise a silvery star; 

Its glance was soft, and sweet, and far. 



ALL SOULS' DAY. 173 

And shone on me with gentle sheen. 
It was throughout the endless space, 
The only beam above the nig-ht 
To make the welkin blue and bright, 
The only smile on heaven's face. 

Alone I went my lonely way: 

The breeze sighed sometimes fitfully; 

The sylvan selvage seemed to me 

To glide in graceful silent play; 

The boscages were frightful all. 

As always in the autumn night; 

The farms were lone, nor fay nor sprite 

Save that beside me thin and tall. 

And as we slowly climbed the hill, 
The psalm was drawing to a close; 
I shivered as the height I rose, 
The voice had grown so very shrill. 
And there within the tufted wood, 
Through which a feeble zephyr blew, 
I saw the white star trembling too. 
And sparkling brightly where it stood. 

At length we reached the pathway's end. 
Beset with saplings, elm and oak, 
All half denuded of their cloak— 
I ask you little more attend — 
There near a mound of saffron-hue — 
And now my tale is nearly run — 
I heard a cry: "I'm saved, 'tis done; 
My savior be you blessed tool'" 

The silence fell upon the land. 
Uneasy ghosts and bustling men. 
And in mv heart I knew it then 



174 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

A suffering- soul had touched my hand. 
I hurried on with glad, good will, 
My lightened footsteps less resound; 
A prayer I muttered, and I found 
The bell was striking slowly still. 

— From the French of Turguety 



THE CONVALESCENT. 175 



THE CONVALESCENT. 

I have seen all my life 

Slip slowly down the slope: 
In the midst of the strife 

Withdrew my star of hope. 
The wings of death outspread, 

With endless shadow covered 

The splendid light of day, 
And in my mortal nest 
I sought to hold the rest 

Of time ere it could fly away. 

Great God, thy hand takes back 

The gift it gave to me, 
And cuts the threads, alack! 

Of hidden time to be. 
My last sun upward looms, 

But linger yet the glooms. 

From life thy anger hurls 
Me down like withered leaf, 

The toy of every wind that whirls. 

And like some ravening thing 

Disease has crunched my bones. 
And graveyard opening 

A tombward passage loans. 
And at the hideous sight, 

All day and through the night 

I sigh, a victim like: 
And in my fear to die, 
A trembling wren am I, 

The falcon's claw prepares to strike. 



176 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 

Thus, thus my cries and fears 

The death-tick chuckles o'er. 
My eyes, all bathed in tears, 

Tired out, would ope no more. 
To inky night I cry: 
"Oh night, and must I lie 

Forever in thy shade, 
Forgotten where I sleep?" 
To flushing morn I weep: 
"My final day is almost made!" 

"My soul is in the gloom, 

My feet are growing cold; 
O hear my shrieks of doom 

And answer me, O God I" 
At last His kindly hand 

Closed up the yawning land 

Agape my path beneath: 
Ah, He has raised me up! 
Life's plenal cup I sup. 

The life late snatched from bragging Death. 
— From the French of J. B. Rousseau. 



THE ANGEL AND THE CHILD. 177 



THE ANGEL AND THE CHILD. 

A radiant cherub, sweet and fair, 

Bent him over a trundle bed, 
As if he saw his image there. 

As in some brooklet mountain-fed. 

" Beautiful infant, just like me. 

Oh, come and follow me where I go. 
And happy together we both will be; 
The world is not worthy of thee! 

" There, there is never ending joy. 

Nor suffers the soul with gladness; 
There pleasure has no sighs, my boy, 
And joyfulness has no sadness. 

" Can ever sorrows or fears or years 
Invade a quietude fit for you, 
And with the bitterness of tears 
Bedim your gentle eyes of blue? 

'• Ah, no, no I In the fields of space 
With me come wander always free. 
And God will surely give thee grace 
For thy days that were yet to be." 

And spreading wide his shiny wings, 

The angel upward took his flight. 
Up to the place where the choir sings. 

Poor mother I baby died that night. 

— From the French of Reboul. 



12 



178 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



THE LEAF. 



■'From thy twig- torn away, 
Poor crispen leaf, I say. 

Whither now?" 
'Alas I I do not know; 
The oak tree lieth low. 

Who art thou?" 

'It was my only friend, 
I know not where I wend, 

Know not how. 
From the sea to the rills, 
From the plains to the hills, 

I am flung-." 

''The noisy madcap wind 
Romped around me so unkind 

Where I hung! 
Now rustling in the gale, 
I fret not, nor I wail, 

For 'tis vain." 

"My fate is that of all; 
The rose leaf on the wall, 

That is ta'en. 
The laurel it is reft 
From the sprig- where it left 

Such a grief. 
'Tis all the same to me. 
If I die or if I be, 

I'm a leaf." 
— From the French of Arnault. 



SONNET. 179 



SONNET. 

I've lost my hope, my wish to live, 
And all my friends and gladness all, 

And even the pride which, I recall, 
Produced the gifts I used to give. 

And when I met with boasted truth, 

I took it for a bosom friend. 
But when I knew it well the end 

Was hate of it, disgust, forsooth. 

And yet this truth lives endlessly, 

And those who passed it by, ah me! 
Have everything on earth ignored. 

God speaks, and we must answer up. 

The only good within my cup 
Is sometimes I have wept, O Lord I 

— From the French of Alfred de Musset. 



180 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



EPIGRAM. 

This world is but a comic play 

Where each plays many parts. 
There on the stage in fine array 

Strut statesmen, priests and low upstarts. 
The rabble on the rearward stools, 

A useless gang but fit for scorn. 
And so we watch the play like fools; 

We pay the toll — and we are shorn, 
And if the parts are badly played 

We hiss the actors unafraid. 

— From the French of J. B. Rousseau, 



THE DELUGE. 181 



THE DELUGE. 

Where once the shapely young deer fed, 

Amorphous seals are seen, 
And nymphs, astonished, scan the dead 

Beneath the waters green. 

And dolphins in the woods from play 

Among the maple rest. 
And lash the elm and victor bay, 

And with the holmoak jest. 

Distracted wolves howl 'midst the sheep, 

By ceaseless waves born on, 
And lions, tawny tigers leap 

At Doom's Leviathan. 

The wild boar's tusk that once was keen 

As lightning's dreadful blade, 
Nor fawn's light limb can shift the scene, 

That Jovian wrath has made. 

The sleepless bird that near the sky 

Her tired wings had spread, 
When earth retains no haven dry, 

Relaxes and is dead. 

The seas like pirates roam and roam. 

Or on the hilltops drowse, 
Invade the quiet mountain home. 

And with the peaks carouse. 

Ah, scarce a living thing survives; 

Whomever they may spare. 
Lean Hunger on him livid thrives. 

And heats his fever there. 

— From Ovid's Metamorphosis. 



182 SONGS FROM THE BLACK MESA. 



DEUCALION'S ADDRESS TO PYRRA. 

No rescue advances, no promise, no hope: 
My soul by the scowl of yon cloud is dismayed; 

Companionship ended: no green hillocks slope, 
And man in the shrine of his spirit is laid. 

What hideous horror would wither thy mind, 
Did Fate thee alone from the wave hold secure! 

Oh, couldst thou be, Pyrra, alone and resigned. 
Oh, couldst thou the gloom of this moment endure? 

Believe me, my wife, had the grim sea engulfed thee, 

I could not this frightfullest exile abide; 
I would rush to the place where false Neptune despoiled me. 

That in death the bond hold that in life had been tied. 

Oh, ye gods, that I could stolen friends now restore 
By the art that Prometheus knew in his day I 

Oh, ye gods, that I could to the shaped clay once more, 
Inbreathe the flown breath of it wafted away! 

The race of the mortal survives in us now. 

For thus the gods ruled in their wisdom's decree; 

'Memorial of Man," it is writ on our brow, 

But our sons from this cancelling law shall be free. 

Oh sister, oh consort, oh yet fondled wife. 
Whom parentage joins with the bridal to me, 

These anguishes link in their turn to my life! 
If felicity lives it is only in thee! 

All, all whom the gaze of the rising sun greets, 
And all whom he sees in his western decline, 

Compose all the world in his passage he meets; — 
The seas wrap the rest in their merciless brine. 

— From Ovid's Metamorphosis. 



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-JAN 2- 1901 



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